I certainly hope you're right, Eva. If the market ever develops for these meters and the number of users grows to the millions (there ARE millions of users of warfarin, aren't there?), the cost of manufacture of the meters should drop substantially, and the test strips will also drop. I certainly would like to see a day when the cost of a meter is around $30, and the test strips are way less than $1.
HOWEVER -- anticoagulation can't be easily equated to blood glucose management. INRs don't change dramatically in short amounts of time in the way that blood sugar can change before or after meals. It may not be as easy to adjust warfarin dosage as it is to know when to take insulin. The quantity of strips sold won't help to bring the cost down much - and they certainly won't help to bring down the cost of the meters (because there can be more profit in a large quantity of test strips sold, so the price of a meter is partially subsidized). The medical establishment will have a hard time believing that everyone with a meter can accurately run a test or correctly adjust warfarin dosage, so it may be something of a hard sell to make them easily available, preferably without a prescription.
The tide, I hope, will turn so that anyone who is able to self test CAN buy the meters and strips affordably.
The other potential issue is that other medications are being developed that may make these meters unnecessary - because these new medications may replace warfarin and be able to prevent clots in a different way. Perhaps their effect won't be reflected in INR. (For example, aspirin acts as an anticoagulant by effecting the platelets - but its effect doesn't show up in changes in INR).
It would be great if tomorrow, anyone who is taking warfarin would be able to walk into a pharmacy and get a meter for $20 or $30, and a year's supply of strips for $20 or so. The real control will be the physician who prescribes the warfarin, and who should be sure that the person submits regular records of tests, dosages and results.
