Generic Casodex: Pharmacies Take the Opportunity to Rip Off Cancer Patients

A new generic version of the prostate cancer drug Casodex was recently released a few weeks ago. As opposed to the brand-name version, which costs more than $600 per month, generic bicalutamide 50mg tablets are VERY affordable. But as we’ve seen on this blog before, when an expensive brand-name drug becomes available as a cheap generic, many pharmacies don’t pass these savings on to their customers.

Here’s a comparison of the price for the same prescription filled at different pharmacies across the country:

Price for Generic Casodex 50mg #30 Tablets
Albertsons: $458.99
Costco: $44.75
CVS: $483.99
Duane Reade: $572.00
Giant Eagle: $622.00
Hy-Vee: $587.99
Local Independent Pharmacy #1: $286.32
Local Independent Pharmacy #2: $78.42
Kmart: $53.63
Kroger: $545.69
Meijer: $245.29
Publix: $456.95
Rite Aid: $504.99
Safeway: $484.99
Sams: $497.50
ShopRite: $299.39
Target: $497.49
Walgreens: $145.29
Walmart: $497.50

Wegmans: $549.99
Winn-Dixie: $348.95

(Click to Enlarge)

As you can see, I found an absolutely huge variation in the price of this medication. On the low end were Costco and Kmart, with respective prices of $44.75 and $53.63. On the high end was Giant Eagle, who actually charged more for generic Casodex ($622.00) than most of these other pharmacies charged for the brand-name version of this medication. At first, I thought the Giant Eagle pharmacist had really given me the price for brand-name Casodex, but then she told me that the brand-name version was about $40 higher! Of the 21 pharmacies that I called, only three—about 14%—had reasonable prices.

A Few Other Thoughts . . .

• Walgreens. While Walgreens usually has some of the highest prescription prices around, they actually had the fourth lowest price for generic Casodex. This is just further proof that you can’t simply assume the price of prescription drugs at any pharmacy. Instead, it’s important to call these stores to determine their prices.
• Sams and Walmart. About a month ago, I wrote a similar article about the variation in price for generic Risperdal among pharmacies. I had noted that Walmart charged about three times as much as Sams for this drug—even though this medication obviously had the exact same cost for both pharmacies. When it comes to generic Casodex, though, there was no such pricing disparity between the two pharmacies. Indeed, both pharmacies charged exactly the same high price of $497.50 (more than 11 times the price that Costco charged).
• “There is no generic version of Casodex.” Of the 21 pharmacies I called, five of them at first tried to tell me that a generic version of Casodex doesn’t exist. Interestingly enough, both Costco (which had the lowest price) and Giant Eagle (which had the highest price) were among these five pharmacies. This is absolutely ridiculous . . . especially considering the fact that generic Casodex has been available for more than a month. In fact, I actually waited so long to write this article because I know how clueless many pharmacists are about the availability of new generics. Even after all this time, though, almost a quarter of the pharmacists I talked to initially argued with me that generic Casodex doesn’t exist. In all of these cases, I mentioned that other pharmacies had told me that there was a generic version, and I was able to receive a price for this drug. However, if you brought in a prescription for this medication to one of these pharmacies, it’s fairly likely that you would end up paying for the brand-name drug.