What is the coat of Tec for you?

[KateA2]

I wasn't sure how much my insurance is paying for my Tecfidera prescription. When I first started taking it, the cost was $48,000/year. But I found out that it is now $8,650/month!! Or, $103,800/year. I pay $40 a month as a copay. It is mind-boggling how expensive this medication has gotten. What are you charged vs actual cost?

[nosrepmodnar]

Call for copay assistance

Make sure you call biogen.
I will see if i can find the number when i get home.
They run your insurance and make sure there are conflicts (Apparently there are some insurances that prohibit you from getting further $ assistance.) if they give support and they will cover your co-pay. I am currently on $0 until January, then i have to re-apply.

[sarabeach123]

This is really interesting! I'd like to hear from others too. I fortunately don't pay anything as it is covered by my insurance company. The company pays about 2,200CAD per month (or 28 days of medication)

That's about 28,700CAD per year or at the current exchange rate, about 21,600 USD

I wonder why it is so much more expensive depending on where you live. Drug companies are crazy!

[uli1515]

Been on it for over 1 year. I pay nothing. I called biogen and they gave me the discounted rate.

no side effects. last re lapse march 15.

[JerryD]

I have been on Tec for about 2 years. I have been paying co-pays the entire time. I have had no side effects and I'm good with that. What does the cost of the drug matter ? Are you thinking of becoming a Tecfidera retailer ? Becoming a member of the 'big pharma' fraternity is a license to print money ! Good luck

[KateA2]

I have been on Tec for about 2 years. I have been paying co-pays the entire time. I have had no side effects and I'm good with that. What does the cost of the drug matter ? Are you thinking of becoming a Tecfidera retailer ? Becoming a member of the 'big pharma' fraternity is a license to print money ! Good luck

Huh. I think it's a valid point to talk about when a medication doubles in cost in a year...108K is a LOT of money. It's a mind-boggling amount of money. Does Tec work for me? Yes! It's working very well (I think, so far so good.) I'm just blown away at the costs.

[lisatherese]

I've been on it since shortly after it was approved, so almost 3 years. I believe I was still on a PPO then and applied to Biogen for the co-pay assistance but they said either we made too much or my co-pay wasn't high enough to qualify. Now we have a more of an HSA type plan, so we pay until we hit our deductible, then pay 20% until we hit our out-of-pocket maximum, which we now hit with my first refill of the year. We are lucky our out-of-pocket max is only $3,000 and our employer contributes $1500 to he HSA, so it costs us $1500/yr, but after that we pay nothing for anything for the rest of the year, so that's nice. My insurance company claims they pay $6200/mo for it.

[MS TOO]

I have been with the same HMO since birth, other than a few years that the military was providing my medical care. Over the years I've seen the costs for everything go up, up, up! I started on Tec in June of 2013 and I paid a $35 copay but since this was a new drug, I had to order it from the specialty pharmacy and could only get 30 days of meds at a time.

2014 no change, 2015 no change. About this time I noticed that the quality of care seemed to be declining with Dr.'s rushing from room to room without spending much time with their patients. I even had nurses and staff admit that they were struggling with all of the new Obamacare patients that were coming in for everything since most of them had ignored their health issues.

I should add that my wife spent several weeks in the hospital with Ulcerative Colitis in 2015 and we had problems with the hospital discharging her early, twice and had several other issues with her care.

January 2016, I order my Tec refill and I get a call from the pharmacist asking if I really wanted to get my Tec refilled. Of course I say, I have MS and this stuff seems to be keeping me from relapsing. So then the pharmacist says, you know your copay is now $150! From $35-$150 in one jump!

So I called Biogen and asked about their copay program and said that I was considering going back on Copaxone which was only $30/month. I gave Biogen some basic information and in just a couple of minutes they said I was approved for their $0 copay program! I figure they are still making a ton of $$ even paying my copay as they are still making the sale to the HMO.

What a system we have, eh?

[carriefromMI]

I pay $0 due to biogen copayment assistance. It used to be $10 I paid but then biogen changed it to cover the full balance. I've been on tecfidera for over 3 years. My insurance pays them $6098.18 per month. I don't know what my Insurance paid when I first started.