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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 5, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I believe the generic drugs (now available in the US) are much cheaper:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9341201/

The list price of PrEP medication and its impact on the ability to scale up use to have public health benefit was described in research literature as early as 2008, four years before the drug was approved. A study published that year assessed the cost effectiveness of implementing a PrEP program targeting men who have sex with men in New York City. The model to determine cost-effectiveness used the 2007 wholesale list price of TDF/FTC, which the authors note was $31USD per pill, making the monthly supply $930USD.

On May 16, 2019, Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O’ Day testified in front of Congress on the pharmaceutical company’s reasoning for keeping the price of TDF/FTC at approximately $1800 for a 30-day supply. O’Day offered that despite the high cost of the medication, it did not impede access, stating, “We offer a wide range of programs to help ensure that people have access to Truvada when they need it. For example, 98% of people who use our copay Assistance Program have no out-of-pocket costs.

Luckily, several structural changes recently have helped turn the tide on some of these upstream structural barriers to PrEP access. The U.S. Services and Preventative Task Force A grade rating for PrEP in 201911 helped reduce or eliminate cost sharing for PrEP. In 2021 as generic TDF/FTC became more widely manufactured and reduced the price of a 30-day supply from $1800 for brand name PrEP down to $40 for a generic, many of these restrictive payer and clinical guideline policies have been removed.