Taking Byetta is a lot easier than getting it. At least for me.

Byetta (pronounced bye-A-tuh)
has been an interest of mine for years. I learned about it eight years ago this month in an interview with Richard Krawiec, who was then Amylin’s spokesman. Then four years ago I wrote what I think was the first article about Byetta for my column on American Diabetes Association’s website.

But it wasn’t until I read and reviewed the new book by Dr. Joe Prendergast, The Uncommon Doctor, that I was inspired to take Byetta myself. I knew that Byetta helps to control blood glucose, but my A1C is already below 7. I also knew that people on Byetta typically lose weight, but the official prescribing information documented an average weight loss of no more than 2.8 kg (a little more than six pounds) after 30 weeks with people who also used metformin.

Dr. Joe’s enthusiasm for Byetta opened my eyes. “My patients have done so well on Byetta,” he wrote in his book, “that I think it could be the next miracle drug.”

He told me a few days ago that 200 of his patients are using Byetta. Their average weight loss since the first of them started in May is 35 pounds.

How could Dr. Joe have so much better results? I don’t really know, but it must be in his selection of patients.

If it weren’t for Dr. Joe and my persistence, I never would have got started on Byetta. I don’t have any issues with Byetta or with its manufacturer, Amylin Pharmaceuticals. In fact, I am such a believer in Byetta that recently I bought 100 shares in the company.

I fault my health insurance company and my former doctor.

It’s hard for me to believe even now the amount of misinformation that so-called customer service representatives gave me. Like a diligent consumer, the first thing that I did was to check with my health insurance company to see if I could afford it. It took at least a half dozen calls.

At first they told me that the 5 mcg Byetta pen that we use for the first month would cost me a $35 copay and $1098 against my Medicare cap. Then, each month after the first we use a 10 mcg pen, which they said would cost $645 a month. Even without considering my other medications that would have meant that this year I would have fallen into the Medicare Part D donut hole, the coverage gap after total drug costs reach $2,250 each year.

It didn’t make sense that the smaller pen would cost more than the bigger one. I had also compared prices with an online drugstore, where Byetta would be much less expensive.

Still, in repeated phone calls the customer service representatives insisted they were correct. I finally demanded to speak to the health insurance company’s pharmacist.

It turns out that the 5 mcg pen would cost me $159.97 against my Medicare cap, and the 10 mcg pen would count as $187.07 each month. So it would fit within the Medicare cap, and I could therefore afford to go on Byetta.

Meanwhile, I had asked people at Amylin’s reimbursement hotline at 800-330-7647 to intercede for me. When they got back to me, it was with a message that my health insurance company doesn’t yet cover Byetta at all. A different customer service representative told Amylin that the insurance company’s “PNT committee” (whatever that is) was still reviewing Byetta, so it wasn’t in the formulary.