Fish oil for $780 per bottle

19. August 2009 William Davis (16)
At prevailing pharmacy prices, one capsule of prescription Lovaza fish oil costs $4.33 each.

Yes, you heard right: $4.33 per capsule.

What do you get for $4.33 per capsule? By omega-3 fatty acid content, you get 842 mg EPA + DHA per capsule.

I can also go to Sam's Club and buy a bottle of their Triple-Strength fish oil with 900 mg omega-3 fatty acids per capsule at $18.99 per bottle of 180 capsules. That comes to 10.5 cents per capsule. That puts the price of fish oil from Sam's Club at 97.6% less cost compared to Lovaza for an equivalent quantity of omega-3 fatty acids.

What if we repriced Sam's Club's Triple-Strength and brought it "in line" with what we pay for Lovaza? That would put the value of one bottle of Sam's Club Triple-Strength fish oil at $780 per bottle.

I take patients off Lovaza every chance I get.
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Comments (16) -

  • Cathy

    8/19/2009 10:31:05 PM |

    Thanks for that.  I still take Lovaza; have been lazy about switching.  I just checked the price my mail-order pharmacy pays and it's $546 per bottle of 120, or just over $1.50 per capsule.  While considerably less than what you quoted, it's still $6 per day and $2185 per year!  I'd no idea.  Plus I take Niaspan for another $900 per year.  I'm switching to OTC for both.  No wonder insurance rates are going up!

  • John Smith

    8/19/2009 11:16:18 PM |

    It's amazing how much some of these companies will try to scam people with 'pharmacy grade' vitamins. It's easy for me to tell how much fish oil is oxidized by taste and how well it works and the best brand I've found is from trader joe's for 8 bucks a bottle. For stuff like vitamin C the process is so simple it's pretty much literally impossible to have any real difference brand to brand aside from how absorbable it is and again it's easy to tell when pills are not absorbing due to how they feel.

  • Clamence

    8/20/2009 12:26:19 AM |

    And we wonder why healthcare costs are spiraling out of control in america...

    What's sad, is the problem isn't limited to just pharmaceuticals, so many other areas like diagnostic imaging and durable medical goods are so much more expensive than they should be.

  • Dr. William Davis

    8/20/2009 1:40:55 AM |

    Do your part to reduce healthcare costs: Reject the idea that fish oil, niacin, and vitamin D should be costly prescription agents.

    Pay for them yourself for SUPERIOR preparations that you can obtain without a prescription. This small effort alone will save us all hundreds of millions of dollars.

  • Nameless

    8/20/2009 3:04:42 AM |

    Anyone know when Lovaza is going generic? I thought I read that perhaps by end of the year their exclusivity may be up, which should open up cheap prescription alternatives -- and sort of kill Lovaza's profits too.

  • Anonymous

    8/20/2009 3:09:24 AM |

    I use otc niacin at about $3 a bottle, and one of the doctors I work with asked me why I hadn't asked my doc for a prescription for Niaspan.
    I just didnt know where to begin.

    Jeanne

  • Anne

    8/20/2009 7:54:19 AM |

    Wow - I'm so surprised that there are worries about a national health care service in the US such as we have in the UK. Here, Lovaza (Omacor) costs the National Health Service £50 for 100 capsules, ie 50p per capsule !

    Of course that's not what patients pay. Patients who are charged prescription charges will pay  Â£7.20 per prescription of 100 capsules, and patients who don't pay prescriptions charges at all (approx 70% of patients), well they don't pay anything for their Lovaza....they have paid in their taxes for it already.

    But to me the biggest surprise is that the pharmacutical company that makes Lovaza charges so much less in the UK than it does in the US !

    Anne

  • Richard A.

    8/20/2009 6:32:00 PM |

    Another way to save on prescription drugs--pill splitting. Too often the smaller dose costs almost as much as the bigger dose. Getting the bigger pill and cutting it down to smaller doses can save a lot of money.

  • pyker

    8/20/2009 9:09:30 PM |

    I'm surprised we don't see scrips for "pharmaceutical-grade water", to wash these down.

  • Anonymous

    8/21/2009 2:21:12 AM |

    pyker, its called "bottled water"

  • JLL

    8/25/2009 1:38:15 PM |

    It's not really a problem that pharmacy grade fish oil is ridiculously expensive, as long as it's not illegal to sell cheaper fish oils too.

    In Europe, the trend seems to be that supplements are becoming available only in pharmacies, which can then charge extraordinary prices for everything.

  • Boris

    9/7/2009 1:22:32 PM |

    I have moderately high triglycerides at 255. My physician gave me a sample bottle of Lovazza to try which has 28 softgels. I have been taking one softgel a day.

    I have been looking into OTC fish oil supplements. Some are very diluted and some are very concentrated. Most break down the EPA and DHA content while others don't. I created a spreadsheet that collects the EPA and DHA content of several OTC fish oil supplement. In order to make a fair comparison, I adjusted my serving size for each brand name to give me about the same quantity of the essential fatty acids. The prices range from $0.11 per dosage to $1.76 per dosage.

    So once I figured out what's the most cost effective brand to buy now I have to worry and wonder about purity. Am I getting a less refined formula that will have heavy metals, PCBs, and other nasty chemicals? The words "triple distilled" mean nothing to me. I'd like to see "Contains no more than 0.010 PPM of arsenic" or something like that.

    The Lovazza might have the advantage here since the FDA probably won't let poisoned fish oil out. I have no idea what my effective price per dosage is with Lovazza since my sample bottle was free. My company takes a decent chunk of my pay for health care and I rarely use it. Maybe it's time I get my money's worth and get some subsidized Lovazza?

  • trinkwasser

    9/10/2009 2:51:21 PM |

    "I'm surprised we don't see scrips for "pharmaceutical-grade water", to wash these down."

    What, like this?

    http://www.marksdailyapple.com/bling-water/

  • Boris

    9/30/2009 4:29:47 PM |

    My one month experiment with Lovaza is over. I received a free sample bottle with 28 capsules last month from my physician. The recommended dosage was four a day but he told me to take one. I did that for one month. My triglycerides went down from 255 to 135 with no significant change in diet. My total cholesterol went down from 221 to 177, and it was all LDL. Unfortunately, my HDL levels stayed almost the same.

    So do I continue with Lovaza and get a prescription or do I get a high quality OTC like Omapure?

    I will see my physician tomorrow.

    Decisions, decisions, decisions!

  • moblogs

    3/24/2010 12:59:07 AM |

    Just want to add that Omacor (European Lovaza) costs £2 per day, while Triple Strength Omega 3 from a reputable company costs 12p per day in comparison, for roughly the same amount of EPA and DHA. You just have to take 6 capsules instead of 4.
    My jaw would've dropped if I hadn't been getting my vitamin D! Smile

  • buy jeans

    11/3/2010 9:50:53 PM |

    I can also go to Sam's Club and buy a bottle of their Triple-Strength fish oil with 900 mg omega-3 fatty acids per capsule at $18.99 per bottle of 180 capsules. That comes to 10.5 cents per capsule. That puts the price of fish oil from Sam's Club at 97.6% less cost compared to Lovaza for an equivalent quantity of omega-3 fatty acids.

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