We are committed to pricing our medicines in a way that reflects the benefit they bring to patients and society, ensuring patients have access and enabling us to continue to invest in new medicines.
We then negotiate with insurers, including PBMs and MCOs, and may provide significant discounts from the initial price.
The price that patients pay for the medicines their physicians prescribe is ultimately set by healthcare providers and insurers.
Nearly 90% of prescriptions are for generic medicines. The other 10% tend to be for innovative medicines—many of which are for serious, hard-to-treat conditions.
Innovative medicines may become generic after a certain period of time. This is why we have lower-cost, effective options for treating conditions like heart disease and depression today. In the future, as more innovative medicines become generic, lower-cost treatment options may extend to cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases.
While we negotiate with insurers and advocate that patient out-of-pocket costs be affordable, the price patients pay for the medicines their physicians prescribe is ultimately set by healthcare providers and insurers.
On average, insurers cover a lower share of prescription drug costs than other healthcare expenses.i We believe that medicines are amongst the most powerful tools in curing, treating and preventing illness and disability and that all patients should have access to the medicines their doctors prescribe.
We will continue to work with insurance providers, governments, and others to improve access to today’s innovative treatment.
iThe Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), 2016 Profile: Biopharmaceutical Research Industry. (2015). Prescription Medicines: Costs in Context [PhRMA analysis based on Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)]. http://phrma-docs.phrma.org/sites/default/files/pdf/prescription-medicines-costs-in-context.pdf
We may change the price of a medicine to reflect new uses or formulations that result from our continued research.
Medicines are often initially approved for use in a specific population. Once a medicine is approved, we continue studying it to see if other patients can benefit, or to find ways to improve it.
Keep in mind that medicines are unique because they are a health care cost that decreases over time.
This is because of the U.S. patent system,which allows for lower-priced generic versions to become available when a medicine’s patent expires.
We price generic and off-patent medicines to maintain their quality, safety and reliability.
When a Pfizer medicine becomes generic, we continue to monitor the quality, safety and reliability of the medicine. We also continue to invest in manufacturing, which can be very complex for certain types of medicines.
We also consider how many other companies supply the medicine.
Marketplace changes, such as the number of suppliers for a particular medicine or biologic, can also impact how we price such medicines.
To truly comprehend the value that medicine provides to individuals and society, we gathered data from published, peer-reviewed studies, and real stories from patients, and turned them into a series of clear-cut papers.
We have a collection of 24 Value of Medicines papers that span all of our therapeutic areas. Select from our newest papers below.
Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases remain the number one cause of death worldwide.
Some rare diseases only affect a handful of patients, while others may affect millions of patients worldwide.
Vaccines are the single most important innovation in the science of health.
Inflammation is a critical response to potential danger signals and damage in organs in our body.
We want to transform the landscape of cancer treatment and significantly improve the lives of cancer patients worldwide.