Mycophenolate is the second drug in almost every transplant regimen, taken alongside tacrolimus and usually a steroid. Like tacrolimus, it went generic long ago and is now genuinely cheap, and like tacrolimus, the brand version is still on the market at a price that has nothing to do with the generic.
There is one wrinkle here that does not exist with most drugs, and it costs people money and confusion. Mycophenolate comes in two chemically different salts sold at different strengths. Mycophenolate mofetil is CellCept and its generics, in 250 mg capsules and 500 mg tablets. Mycophenolic acid delayed-release is Myfortic and its generics, in 180 mg and 360 mg tablets. They are not interchangeable milligram for milligram, so comparing their prices per tablet is misleading unless you know which one you are on. Every figure below was researched on September 5, 2026.
What Does Mycophenolate Cost Without Insurance?
Acquisition costs come from the CMS National Average Drug Acquisition Cost survey, with rows effective August 19, 2026 (Myfortic effective July 8, 2026) and present in the weekly file as of September 2, 2026. Cash prices come from Cost Plus Drugs and Drugs.com, both read September 5, 2026. Retail comparison figures are the prices Cost Plus publishes next to its own. Medicare Part D figures are 2024 data published by CMS in June 2026 and reflect gross spending including plan and beneficiary payments.
| Product | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mycophenolate mofetil 500 mg tablet, per tablet | $0.26980 (CMS NADAC) | $0.41 to $0.53 (Drugs.com cash) | $5.85 (retail comparison) |
| Mycophenolate mofetil 250 mg capsule, per capsule | $0.13845 (CMS NADAC) | $0.19 to $0.26 (Drugs.com cash) | $2.19 (retail comparison) |
| Mycophenolic acid DR 180 mg tablet, per tablet | $0.09852 (CMS NADAC) | $0.25 (Cost Plus, 30 for $7.48) | $12.11 (retail comparison) |
| Mycophenolic acid DR 360 mg tablet, per tablet | $0.22649 (CMS NADAC) | $0.36 (Cost Plus, 30 for $10.80) | $27.17 (retail comparison) |
| CellCept 500 mg tablet, per tablet | $14.12 (Part D 2024 average) | $17.30357 (CMS NADAC) | $17.30357 |
| Myfortic 360 mg tablet, per tablet | $10.20 (Part D 2024 average) | $14.93420 (CMS NADAC) | $14.93420 |
| Oral suspension, per mL | $0.94405 (generic, CMS NADAC) | $2.78 (generic, Drugs.com) | $8.31778 (CellCept, CMS NADAC) |
| One month of 500 mg tablets (120 tablets) | $32.38 (at CMS NADAC) | $55.27 (Drugs.com cash) | $2,076 (CellCept at CMS NADAC) |
| Medicare Part D gross spending per beneficiary, 2024 | $545 (generic mofetil) | $1,123 (generic mycophenolic acid) | $11,320 (CellCept) |
The retail comparison column is where the sources part company, and it is worth naming. Drugs.com prices 60 of the generic 500 mg tablets at $31.54, about 53 cents each, falling to 41 cents at larger quantities. Cost Plus Drugs, on the same day, quotes $175.50 as the retail price for just 30 of that strength, about $5.85 each. The honest cross-source range for an unhelped retail fill is therefore wide, roughly $0.41 to $5.85 per tablet, and the only number both agree on is the floor: Cost Plus itself charges $9.66 for 30, plus $5.25 shipping per order.
Delayed-release mycophenolic acid shows the widest gap of all. Cost Plus charges $7.48 for 30 of the 180 mg tablets against a $363.30 retail comparison, and $10.80 for 30 of the 360 mg against $815.10. That is a difference of roughly 50 to 75 times for the same generic tablet.
What Drives the Price
Brand versus generic, by a factor of about 64. CMS acquisition data puts a generic 500 mg mofetil tablet at $0.26980 and a CellCept 500 mg tablet at $17.30357. The Part D numbers make the same point over a year: 361 beneficiaries on CellCept averaged $11,320 in gross spending in 2024, and the 116,130 on generic mofetil averaged $545. If your prescription says CellCept and you are paying cash, that one word is the entire bill.
Which salt you are on. Mycophenolic acid delayed-release is cheaper per tablet at acquisition cost ($0.09852 for 180 mg and $0.22649 for 360 mg) than mofetil, but the strengths are not equivalent, so you cannot read those numbers as a savings opportunity. The comparison that matters is generic versus brand within whichever salt your prescriber chose.
Formulation. The oral suspension is the expensive route by a wide margin. Generic suspension runs $0.94405 per mL at acquisition cost and $444.85 per 160 mL bottle at Drugs.com cash prices, and the CellCept-branded suspension is nearly nine times the generic per mL. The suspension exists for people who cannot swallow tablets or capsules, which is a clinical question, but if tablets work the tablets are dramatically cheaper.
Tablet count, not milligrams. Mycophenolate is dosed several times a day, and many transplant recipients take four or more of the 500 mg tablets daily, so a month is often 120 tablets rather than 30. Any price you see quoted for “30 tablets” is likely a quarter of your actual monthly volume. Price it per tablet and multiply by your own count.
Fixed dispensing costs. On a drug this cheap, overhead dominates. At Cost Plus, $5.00 of the $9.66 is a per-order pharmacy labor fee and shipping is $5.25 per order regardless of size. Drugs.com’s per-tablet price falls from 53 cents at 60 tablets to 41 cents at 500. A 90-day fill is meaningfully cheaper per month than three 30-day fills at every route.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
Generic mycophenolate is another clear case for paying cash rather than routing a fill through a pharmacy benefit. If your copay is $10 or $15, a $9.66 mail order matches or beats it without a prior authorization.
The standard tradeoff still applies. Cash spending outside a plan does not count toward a deductible or an out-of-pocket maximum, and you cannot combine a discount card with insurance on the same fill. On a drug costing well under a dollar a day, that lost credit is not worth chasing.
The single most useful coverage fact for this audience is Medicare’s immunosuppressive drug benefit. If Medicare helped pay for your transplant, Part B covers your anti-rejection drugs. If your Medicare exists only because of end-stage renal disease, it normally ends 36 months after a successful kidney transplant, and since 2023 there has been a Part B immunosuppressive drug benefit that continues covering these drugs alone past that point. Medicare.gov puts the 2026 cost at a $121.60 monthly premium (higher at higher incomes) plus a $283 deductible, after which you pay up to 20% of the Medicare-approved amount. It covers nothing but immunosuppressants, so it is not a substitute for health coverage, and you sign up through Social Security. Medicare Savings Programs can cover the premium and coinsurance for people with limited income and resources.
Manufacturer help follows the pattern you should expect on every brand drug, and it is worth stating precisely because people apply to the wrong one. Genentech’s CellCept Co-pay Card Program can bring the cost to as little as $15 a month, and it requires commercial insurance. The program for people without coverage is the Genentech Patient Foundation, which provides free Genentech medicine to people who have no insurance coverage or who have financial concerns and meet its criteria, with different income requirements for uninsured patients than for insured ones. A co-pay card will not help a cash payer. The Foundation might.
How to Pay Less
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Confirm you are being dispensed the generic. The gap between CellCept and generic mycophenolate mofetil is about 64 times at acquisition cost. Nothing else on this page is worth as much. If your bottle says CellCept and you are paying cash, ask the pharmacy what the generic would cost on the same prescription.
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Price a transparent mail pharmacy first. Cost Plus Drugs charges $9.66 for 30 of the 500 mg tablets and publishes the breakdown: $4.05 manufacturing, $0.61 markup and $5.00 pharmacy labor, plus $5.25 shipping per order. For the delayed-release generic it is $7.48 for 30 of the 180 mg and $10.80 for 30 of the 360 mg. Our Cost Plus Drugs price guide explains where the model helps and where it does not.
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Fill 90 days at a time. Every route charges its fixed costs per order, so tripling the quantity does not triple the price. This matters more on mycophenolate than on most drugs because the tablet counts are high.
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Run a free discount card if you fill locally. Card prices move between visits and between chains, so check more than one on the same prescription rather than trusting a single online quote. Our comparison of GoodRx vs. SingleCare covers how to do that.
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Apply to the patient assistance program, not the co-pay card, if you are uninsured. For CellCept that means the Genentech Patient Foundation rather than the co-pay card. Transplant centers usually have a financial coordinator whose job is filing these forms, so ask before you do it yourself.
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Do not assume a discount generic program covers it. Retailer low-cost generic lists are built around high-volume primary care drugs, and transplant immunosuppressants are generally not on them. Ask at the counter before transferring a prescription on that assumption, and if a quoted price looks unreasonable, run it through our fair price checker.
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Handle the visits and any billed labs separately. A free or sliding-scale clinic can often manage refills and routine follow-up cheaply, and if a hospital has already billed you at a markup, our guide to negotiating medical bills has the script.
Bottom Line
Budget roughly $10 for 30 generic mycophenolate mofetil tablets and about $55 for a 120-tablet month at cash retail prices, and treat any quote in the hundreds as a signal to shop rather than a fact about the drug. Brand CellCept and brand Myfortic are priced 60-fold and 65-fold above their generics respectively, and the oral suspension is the expensive formulation in both families.
One thing worth saying plainly: stretching or skipping an anti-rejection dose to save money puts the transplant at risk, and the amounts involved here are small relative to what a rejection episode costs. If price is the obstacle, the Part B immunosuppressive drug benefit, the manufacturer’s patient assistance program and your transplant center’s financial coordinator all exist for exactly this. Almost everyone taking mycophenolate is also taking tacrolimus and a steroid, so price the whole regimen using our tacrolimus cost guide and prednisone cost guide, and see our kidney transplant cost guide and dialysis cost guide for the surrounding picture.