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How hard is it to get on Actemra (Tocilizumab) with PMR?
Polymyalgia Rheumatica (PMR) | Last Active: Apr 2, 2023 | Replies (51)Comment receiving replies
"Actemra weekly injections = $1070.91/month"
Are you sure this is a monthly cost for 4 injections if given weekly?
I was told that the cost of each injection was roughly $1,000. I honestly don't know what each injection costs.
There isn't any rule that says you have to have to do an injection every week. I was actually started out on an injection every 2 weeks. Less frequent injections seem to work almost as well as my current weekly injections.
My rheumatologist doesn't want me to go any longer than 10 days between injections. I'm given some leeway on how often I do my injections. I try to do an injection on the same day each week but I sometimes forget what day it is.
I like doing infusions better. That way I'm scheduled for an appointment to get an infusion.
Replies to ""Actemra weekly injections = $1070.91/month" Are you sure this is a monthly cost for 4 injections..."
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I think you are right about the costs.
Perhaps the pharmacy is assuming an injection once/month instead of once/week.
The attached pdf is from the Kaiser, and the Actemra cost does look like it is for a single injection. And the Kevzara cost I quoted was actually only for 2 injectsion With this understanding, costs look more like
Actemra = $4641/MONTH
Kevzara = $7853/MONTH
The $15,000 corporate offsets will not go far, about 3.2 months with Actemra and 1.9 month with Kevzara.
Or I could get shots bi-weekly and double these periods.
The studies I saw indicated this reduced effectiveness somewhat though - here's a some quotes from New England J of Medicine study on Actemra:
"A total of 56% of the patients in the group that received tocilizumab weekly and 53% of those in the group that received tocilizumab every other week had sustained remission at 52 weeks."
"The percentages of patients who had a flare were 23% in the group that received tocilizumab weekly, 26% in the group that received tocilizumab every other week"
"The mean increase (indicating clinical improvement) from baseline to week 52 in the SF-36 physical component summary score was 4.10 in the group that received tocilizumab weekly and 2.76 in the group that received tocilizumab every other week, whereas scores decreased (indicating a worse condition) in the two placebo groups..."
Drug search result _ Actemra (Drug-search-result-_-Actemra.pdf)
Drug search result _ Actemra (Drug-search-result-_-Actemra-1.pdf)