Prascend Update

I feel like I’m doing some catchup here, but…I think the last time I gave a Cushings update for Tristan, it was not long after the rules change that disallowed compounded pergolide, which he’d done really well on.

Since then, we did some more precise testing and Tristan’s levels were higher than we wanted, and he got moved to 1.5 tabs of Prascend a day. He’s tolerating it beautifully, thankfully, and both his levels and his symptoms remain fully under control.

However: the cost keeps going up pretty steadily. I just checked, and in 2019 I was paying $288 per box, buying directly from my vet. In 2020, I paid $337 a box, and was able to consistently find a coupon that brought it to $303.50. In 2022, the price went to $354, and I stopped being able to consistently find coupons or rebates. (I generally use Valley Vet, though always Google around every time I order; the price is pretty locked in across all the sites I’ve found.)

I just ordered a box – which at his current rate, will last 106 days – and it cost $375. That’s $2.43 a pill, or $3.60 per day for just that one medication.

Some years ago, there was promise of hope on the horizon when the Prascend trademark was set to expire. There was a lot of talk in online forums about a generic supplier picking up the formulation and making a cheaper version, but that hasn’t happened.

I don’t have an end goal here, except to say that it’s really starting to add up – and Cushings is a progressive disease. Tris might need two tabs a day someday. It’s becoming a significant chunk of my budget, even setting aside his other standard veterinary stuff – about which I’ll write later.