Meijer and Giant Eagle are offering free diabetes medications to customers with a prescription, upping the ante among grocery chains hoping to lure customers with free medications.
Metformin Immediate Release, the most commonly prescribed medicine to treat type 2 diabetes, joins several prescribed antibiotics and prenatal vitamins now available at no charge at the Michigan-based grocery retailer, Meijer said yesterday.
Metformin dosages offered include 500 mg, 850 mg and 1,000 mg tablets, said Effie Steele, clinical-services coordinator. Tablets will be dispensed at up to 100 at a time. The pills typically would cost a patient $14.30 for the 500 mg dosage and $41.99 for the 1,000 mg dosage, spokesman Frank Guglielmi said.
Giant Eagle's free diabetes-drug program, also announced yesterday, will offer five generic medications: Chlorpropamide, Glimepiride, Glipizide, Glyburide and Metformin, spokesman Mike Duffey said yesterday. The retailer's program is offered at its Columbus-area and Toledo stores.
Meijer and Giant Eagle long ago joined major grocery retailers Kroger and Walmart in competing for business by offering free or low-cost generic prescription drugs.
But Meijer and Giant Eagle are the only grocery retailers serving Ohio to offer the free diabetes medication. Publix grocery stores also make the offer, but the Florida-based chain doesn't have stores in central Ohio.
"So much of what we do is designed to promote a healthier lifestyle for our shoppers, whether it's helping them to live better or to feel better," Hank Meijer, co-chairman and CEO of Meijer, said in a statement. "This is one more way Meijer can help our customers build healthier lifestyles while saving them money."
A Giant Eagle executive cited similar reasons for making its offer.
"Type 2 diabetes is unfortunately an increasingly common disease in the U.S.," said Randy Heiser, vice president of pharmacy for Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle. "It's important to ensure that patients are able to afford treatment, and that is why Giant Eagle is offering these five commonly prescribed diabetes medications at no cost whatsoever."
Kroger has no immediate plans to follow suit, an official said yesterday.
Kroger spokesman Doug Cornelius said the chain will continue with its $4 and $10 generic-prescription program.
Retailers' free and low-cost programs have had an effect on prescription-drug sales nationally, with sales up 5.1 percent to $300.3 billion last year, compared with growth of 1.8 percent in 2008, according to IMS Health, a Connecticut-based data tracking firm.
IMS found that generics now represent 75 percent of all dispensed prescriptions in the U.S., up from 57 percent in 2004. The total number of generic prescriptions filled increased 5.9 percent in 2009, while the number of brand-name prescriptions filled declined 7.6percent.