Pfizer Inc. is unveiling a new program Thursday that will let people who have lost their jobs and health insurance keep taking some widely prescribed Pfizer medications—including Lipitor and Viagra—for free for up to a year.
The world’s biggest drugmaker will provide more than 70 of its prescription drugs at no cost to unemployed, uninsured Americans, regardless of their prior income, who lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been on the Pfizer drug for three months or more.
The announcement comes in the middle of a campaign in Washington to rein in health-care costs and extend coverage. The move could earn Pfizer some goodwill in that debate after long being a target of critics of drug industry prices and sales practices.
The program also likely will help keep those patients loyal to Pfizer brands.
“Everybody knows now a neighbour, a relative who has lost their job and is losing their insurance. People are definitely hurting out there,” said Jorge Puente, Pfizer’s head of pharmaceuticals outside the U.S. and Europe and a champion of the project. “Our aim is to help people bridge this point.”
Pfizer’s program comes at a time when many drugmakers, including Pfizer, have been raising prices on their drugs, partly to offset declines in revenue as the global recession reduces the number of prescriptions people can afford to fill.
The 70-plus drugs covered include several diabetes drugs and some of Pfizer’s top money makers, from cholesterol fighter Lipitor and painkiller Celebrex to fibromyalgia treatment Lyrica and Viagra for impotence.
The list includes drugs from several other popular classes, including antibiotics, antidepressants, antifungal treatments, several heart drugs, contraceptives and smoking cessation products.
The idea for the program came just five weeks ago, at a leadership training meeting, as the workers discussed how many patients are struggling, Puente said.
“It was my idea,” he said. “I floated it, and the reception it got was so dramatic that it very quickly became our idea.”
Colleagues suggested employees could donate to a fund to help support the effort, Puente said. He said some employees had tears in their eyes when discussing how they could help people who had lost jobs.
