Increased depot medroxyprogesterone acetate use increases family planning program pharmaceutical supply costs

Abstract

To measure the use rates of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate and oral contraceptives and compare the costs between the two methods to see whether these trends had impacted the pharmaceutical acquisition costs for a family planning program, we compared vendor invoice costs over three time periods, 1992, 1994, and 1999. Visit types and client demographic statistics were tabulated from existing encounter record data sources. A local pharmaceutical chain was queried about their acquisition costs for similar products. Since 1992, depot medroxyprogesterone acetate use has increased from 3 to 17% while oral contraceptive use has decreased from 45 to 40% of contraceptive clients. The cost to our program for depot medroxyprogesterone acetate is $4.75 for 28 days and the average pill package is purchased for $1.35. The cost to our program is 4 times greater for the injection contraceptive user than for the oral contraceptive user. Approximately 80% of our clients have household incomes less than 200% of the poverty level and obtain their services from our program for free. This combination of increasing popularity and the high cost of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate has resulted in a great increase in the pharmacy acquisition cost. The oral contraceptive manufacturers make their products available at large discounts (20-fold reduction), but depot medroxyprogesterone acetate is not provided at a similar discount (2.8-fold reduction). We believe this is because there is no generic or competing product. The high cost of depot medroxyprogesterone acetate could jeopardize our ability to offer this highly effective method of birth control to all women.