User 307603

AstraZeneca's Real Concern is Map Pharmaceuticals

Your persepctive is inaccurate in one sense. Yes I agree MCOs do not give a hoot if your therapy takes 3-5 or 30-35 minutes or if it has less side effects in the long term. What they do care about is if this drug works better as per delivering more medication to the lungs. If this increases efficacy which can possible lead to keeping kids out of the ER which costs the MCO hundreds to thousands of dollars per ER visit then MCOs will want this prodcut on their formularies at least as a Tier 3 level with mininal contracting if not at a Tier 2 level with higher contracting. Not sure where you are getting the $100 figure from as most MCOs will cover most asthma prodcuts, espcially steroids, at a Tier 3 level ($35-$45 copay) with some of them requiring a Prior Authorization to push this through. These are facts.

The biggest X factor here will be to se if Map has done any head to head (with Pulmicort) longer term studies looking as asthma rates, FEV1 over the 24 hour period, and ER visits with the two products. My guess is they have not since negative results would significantly hurt this drug and their ability to market it that way I have described above. Hope this helps.

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On Nov 25 10:06 AM Jose Mcintyre wrote:

> Managed care won't care if a patient needs 10 minutes of therapy
> instead of 5 minutes.
>
> If you were a parent would you pay $20 for your generic pulmincort
> or $100 for MAPP's? Total extra cost to your family of $960/year?
>
>
> I don't find mapp to be particularly compelling.