Pfizer Starts Free Drug Program for Newly Unemployed

Pfizer Inc. is offering as much as a year of free medicine, such as the Lipitor cholesterol pill and Viagra for sexual dysfunction, to Americans who lost jobs and health insurance.

The program covers more than 70 medicines for people who can demonstrate unemployment since Jan. 1, have no drug insurance and were taking a Pfizer product for at least three months before the job loss, the New York-based drugmaker said today in a statement.

Jorge Puente, regional president for worldwide pharmaceuticals, suggested the program a month ago to help the 46 million Americans without health insurance, Pfizer said. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance was 6.56 million last week and the jobless rate has climbed to 8.9 percent, the highest since 1983, according to U.S. Department of Labor.

“The current economic environment has added considerable new stress to the daily life of millions of hard-working Americans, and our colleagues are responding to help their neighbors in the communities where they reside,” said Pfizer Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Kindler. “We are doing what we can to ensure that recent loss of employment does not preclude people from managing their health.”

A Pfizer spokesman, Ray Kerins, declined to say how much the program would cost Pfizer or how many people may be eligible.

Patients have been switching from brand-name drugs to generic copies that cost a fraction of the price, according to IMS Health Inc., a research company based in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Generic Zocor

Pfizer has said sales of Lipitor have declined since generic copies of Zocor, a rival cholesterol pill made by Merck & Co. of Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, came on the market in 2006. Lipitor costs about $4 a pill compared with less than $1 for generic Zocor, or simvastatin.

To get free Pfizer drugs, patients must “attest to financial hardship.” The medicines are available free for as much as a year or until the patient finds a job. Pfizer said people who are interested in enrolling in the program should go to www.PfizerHelpfulAnswers.com.