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 Minoxidil - known by the popular brand name Rogaine - was 40 percent
more expensive when it was marketed as a foam to women than when it
was advertised to men, researchers found.
"Ethically it seems pretty questionable to be charging women more
for the same thing," said senior author Dr. Jules Lipoff, of the
University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine in
Philadelphia.
Lipoff said a trip to a store led to the study, because he noticed
the listed price per ounce for minoxidil was more for the box marked
for women than the box marked for men.
The drug is used to treat male- and female-pattern hair loss, which
affects 80 million people in the United States, the researchers
write in JAMA Dermatology.
Minoxidil is available over the counter as a 5 percent solution for
men and a 2 percent solution for women - both to be used twice per
day. In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a 5
percent foam version of the medicine for men to be used twice per
day. The agency approved the same foam for women in 2014 for use
once per day.
For the new study, the researchers collected 41 minoxidil products
between July and November 2016 from the nation's largest retail
chains in Indiana, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania. Those chains
were CVS, Kroger, Rite Aid, Target, Walgreens and Walmart.
The prices of minoxidil solution and foam were compared per 30
milliliters of the product.
The price per 30 ml of 2 percent solution for women averaged to
$7.61, compared to $7.63 per 30 ml of 5 percent solution for men.
While the difference in price per 30 ml of solution was not
statistically significant between the male and female products,
Lipoff pointed out that it could still be interpreted as women
paying more for the medicine. After all, he said, women are paying
the same price for less than half of the active ingredient found in
the solution marketed to men.
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There is a possibility that the added inactive ingredients in the
women's solution leads to a more costly product, he said. The
argument can't be made for the 5 percent foam, though, because the
product advertised to men is identical to the product marketed to
women.
Yet, the price per 30 ml of 5 percent minoxidil foam was $11.27 for
the product marketed to women, compared to $8.05 for the product
marketed to men.
Minoxidil is currently only sold as a foam under the brand name
Rogaine by Johnson and Johnson Consumer Inc.
A spokesperson for the company said Men's Rogaine Unscented Foam and
Women's Rogaine Unscented Foam are priced the same on its website,
but he could not speak for the prices of individual retailers.
Lipoff told Reuters Health that most dermatologists he knows
recommend people only use the foam version of minoxidil marketed to
men because of the price difference.
"I tell all of my patients that I’m treating for hairloss to not buy
Women's Rogaine," he said. "I explain to them that it’s the same
product, but you pay more because you’re a woman."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2r6tXF7 JAMA Dermatology, online June 8, 2017.
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