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More Ortho Evra® News
West Virginia Family Planning's supplier of Ortho Evra® patches and contraceptive pills for low-income residents lowered its prices on both products.
The prices that Ortho-McNeil charges public health services across the U.S. for Ortho Evra® dropped from $22.46 to $15. That price is about $3 more than Ortho-McNeil charged family planning centers before July 1, when the company dramatically raised prices for no apparent reason.
The increase in costs forced many family planning agencies to stop providing Ortho-McNeil birth control products. The company provided more than 75 percent of West Virginia Family Planning's birth control pill supply and is the only provider of the Ortho Evra® birth control patch.
Last year West Virginia Family Planning had approximately 4,800 women opt for Ortho Evra® as their birth control choice.
At the time of the first news reports of the birth control price hikes, West Virginia Family Planning had a two week supply of birth control pills and Ortho Evra® patches.
The Ortho Evra® supply now stands at about 1,000 birth control patches.
Family Planning continues to work with acting pharmaceutical advocates and pharmacists to find low-cost substitutes to Ortho-McNeil's products.
With the dramatic increases in birth control prices many family planning directors are accusing Ortho-McNeil of gouging government-funded health centers.
"Nobody believes that Ortho-McNeil had any reason to increase these prices by this amount," said Lon Newman, director of Family Planning Health Services, which operates seven clinics in Wisconsin.
"It's clearly a market manipulation on Ortho's part."
Almost all of Ortho-McNeil's oral contraceptives are now available in generic form, the company said in a press release. It is now focused on providing "highly competitive, low-cost access to our branded products," including the Ortho Evra® birth-control patch, the release also said.
Reference:
"Birth-Control Prices Inch Down: State Agency Out of 4 Types of Pills," The Charleston Gazette, Morgan Kelly, August 2006.
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