About 200,000 New Zealanders taking heart medication will have to change drugs or cough up more money for their prescriptions as of July.

Pharmac, the government gency that pays for meds, confirmed the cost of three-month prescriptions for Betaloc and Plendil, taken for high blood pressure and heart failure, would attract a surcharge of between $2 and $10, starting this summer.

Pharmac medical director Peter Moodie says Astrazeneca had increased the price of the drugs and Pharmac could not justify an extra $4 million a year on top of its existing subsidy.

Where else will AstraZeneca raise prices? On which drugs? By how much? Dave Brennan and his team must do something to justify the $15.6 billion they’ve agreed to pay for MedImmune. This is one way to compensate, no?

Source: New Zealand Herald

[tags]AstraZeneca, MedImmune, Prices[/tags]