Acyclovir: 500% Price Difference At 2 Thai Pharmacies

[ItDontMeanAThing]

Acyclovir 200 mg at Fascino is 175 bt for 25 tabs, while it's 875 bt at Boots in the same mall. That's 5 times as much.

Did one of these pharmacies make a mistake on the 'per unit' of their price? A box has 5 strips of 5 tabs each. The Boots price is 175 per strip, same as Fascino's price per box.

Googled the drug price and found next to nothing. Only reference was in a 3 year old post that said the cost was 150-200 bt for 2-3 days worth - at unknown dose size or frequency.

Would it just be easier to ask the forum what is the typical price for Acyclovir 200 mg?

[lopburi3]

I don't know the price but believe expensive so 175 per strip sounds right - normally the price marked is per strip on medications sold that way.

[harrry]

check if the medicine is the same in both places. THere may be a locally manafactured one in one case and a foreign one at the other.

I know Augmentin1000 in a good local brand packed in foil in a box is 280 baht for a 10 tab pack. They also have the same medicine but foreign brand for 850 baht.

[Digitalbanana]

>Acyclovir 200 mg at Fascino is 175 bt for 25 tabs

A few years back 400mg was going for about that price in Bangkok.

[ItDontMeanAThing]

check if the medicine is the same in both places. THere may be a locally manafactured one in one case and a foreign one at the other.

Will do, thanks. Checked US price on drugstore.com. Converts to 15bt a tab for genric, so I can't see how boots prices it at 35bt.

[chris2004]

Boots are very expensive for everything. Basically they charge western prices. Best avoided unless you can't get it elsewhere.

[Sheryl]

Are you sure it was the same brand? As acylovir is available here under several.

If really the same brand then indeed one of these 2 stores made a mistake in price. If it's an imported brand then it was probably Fascino's mistake i.e. they charged you for a box what should have been the price for a strip. if a locally made brand then vice versa.

Boots does run higher than elsewhere but not by that much for the exact same thing.

[wpcoe]

Did one of these pharmacies make a mistake on the 'per unit' of their price? A box has 5 strips of 5 tabs each. The Boots price is 175 per strip, same as Fascino's price per box.

I think you might be onto something there.

Several years ago, I encountered a similar pricing situation -- can't even recall now what the substance was -- but the problem turned out to be that one store had put a price tag for a full *box* (i.e. multiple strips of tablets/capsules) as the price of a single strip. I bet Boots screwed up, in your case.

[lomatopo]

120 Baht/25 tabs (5 strips of 5 tabs each)/200 mg/Virogon (local Silom Medical generic Acyclovir) at South East Pharmacy (Sukhumvit Rd. near Soi 15). Foodland pharmacy charges 180 baht/25 tabs.

Edited September 11, 2011 by lomatopo

[ItDontMeanAThing]

At the other Boots in town the price is 185 per strip for the Boots brand generic, so the price per strip was not a mistake. Surprised me to see the 500% price discrepancy for a drug that's easy to manufacture. Could be their marketing strategy or the other generics are 1/5th the price because they contain no active ingredients.

Boots also offered an import from Australia manufactured by Schering Ploughat 300 per strip (?? number of tabs, 6 or 7 IIRC).

[Heng]

Welcome to the pharmaceutical industry. Just about everything costs very little to make once the R&D is done. And then when the R&D is done, they try to pitch it to you that most of their revenue goes towards more R&D when in reality much of it goes towards marketing.