...and they charge hundreds of pounds more for drugs you can buy at Asda

PRIVATE IVF clinics are selling fertility drugs to couples for hundreds of pounds more than high street chemists.

Clinics are adding a mark-up of as much as £370 compared to Boots or Asda, which prescribe the drugs at cost price.

The Herts and Essex Fertility Centre charges £1,247 for three drugs routinely prescribed to women on IVF. But the same prescriptions in the same quantities cost £876.72 at Boots or £929.22 at Asda.

Couples who buy drugs from the clinics may have no idea they are paying over the odds or that they can get them elsewhere.

Last night, experts accused the clinics of exploitation, calling the way they charge for IVF drugs ‘a complete racket’.

In Scotland, the NHS funds three IVF cycles but that is not replicated everywhere in England and many women still opt for the private route.

They are prescribed drugs that stimulate the ovaries to release eggs, which are then harvested by doctors to create an embryo.

But they may not know that the prescription can be taken to a pharmacy instead of being provided by their clinic. The cost of one drug, Gonal-F, is £756.60 at Boots for the typical 2,700 units needed – but £1,116 at the Herts and Essex Fertility Centre.

Create Fertility, which has clinics around the country, charges £900, although it only offers natural or mild IVF requiring around half as much of the drug.

Gonal-F, at 2,700 units, added to a 250microgram injection of Ovitrelle to trigger ovulation, and four 15-packs of cyclogest, a hormone to thicken the lining of the womb and maintain pregnancy, come in at £876.72 at Boots. The price is £929.22 at Asda, £975 at Create Fertility, £883.47 at the Lister Fertility Clinic in London and £1,247 at the Herts and Essex Fertility Centre.

The London Women’s Clinic charges £1,100 to patients at its Harley Street, Kent and Essex branches for these three drugs, plus Orgalutran, which prevents ovulation until the clinic can collect a woman’s eggs.

While its mark-up is lower, that still comes in at just over £20 more than the charge for the four drugs at Boots and Asda.

The price for all four drugs at the Lister Clinic is £1,176.70 – almost £100 more than the high street stores.

IVF expert Dr John Parsons, a retired consultant at King’s College Hospital who worked on the first IVF births, said: ‘Some private clinics will dispense the drugs themselves, with a whopping great mark-up.

‘People do not realise the extra costs being added to their bill. It is a complete racket.’

An Asda worker told the Mail that customers had reported clinics charging up to £540 extra for Gonal-F.

Susan Seenan, chief executive of the Fertility Network UK charity, said: ‘It is of great concern to hear that some private clinics are imposing an exorbitant mark-up on the cost price of necessary fertility drugs.’

Professor Geeta Nargund, medical director at Create Fertility, said the prices compared did not apply to its IVF, which is ‘mild’ or ‘natural’, using few or no drugs that can be bought elsewhere, adding: ‘Our priority is to provide treatment at a fair cost.’

Boots said: ‘The cost of fertility medicines varies and depends entirely on the individual’s treatment and dosage required.’ Asda declined to comment. Herts & Essex Fertility Centre said it was transparent about prices and staff were happy for patients to buy drugs from a pharmacy elsewhere. It said it did not have the buying power of big retailers such as Asda.

A spokesman added: ‘We supply drugs to our patients with needles, syringes and sharps boxes, which are not supplied by supermarket pharmacies.’

The London Women’s Clinic said: ‘We endeavour to make our prices as affordable as possible. Our medication is sourced from the manufacturer so patients can be confident of its quality, traceability and safety.’

A Lister Fertility Clinic spokesman said: ‘We aim to offer competitively priced drugs. There is no obligation to buy them from us.’