Generic Prescript. costs = Name Brand...huh? (Read 1193 times)

Spaniel got a big part of it.  The thing that many don't realize is that the first generic to market, taking advantage of the 6 month exclusivity, is often manufactured by a generic company owned by the brand name company.  The price for the first generic for any brand is frequently no more than 10% less than the brand.  Your insurance company knows this and the (still) high cost of the drug gets passed onto you as a tier three copay.  Wait 6 to 9 months and the pricing will get better.  If you care to name the drug I can give you more details.

I suspect you are right about this, since the "generic" I just picked up is EXACTLY the same right down to the printing on the pills.  The only difference is the label on the previous bottle says Concerta ER, the new one is Methylphenidate ER...hmmm...  He's only been on this med for one month prior to this refill.  Is it possible that the last bottle was also generic?  I've never before seen a generic med that looks exactly like its namebrand counterpart...

In what way ?

The government.  Giant corporations that post high profit margins.  A regulatory agency.  Market interference.  And lawyers.

How much more evil do you need?

Actually, no I do not.  And while I have been avoiding that stuff my entire career, the place where I work now bans it outright.  So no, I do not.

The health care system I work for also banned employees from accepting pens, post-its, etc., from drug reps.  However, when I was working in-house (as opposed to from home, my normal setup) a year and a half ago due to a job change, it seemed that every Wednesday lunch for the entire clinic was bought by the drug reps in the form of various catered setups (Qdoba, Applebee's, etc.).  Now it seems that there is a big push being made to stop the use of "samples" of drugs.  This was first mentioned over a year ago, but now there is an actual timeline, culminating in there being no samples either accepted from drug reps or given to patients as of August 1st.

I am about halfway thru "Generation Rx" by Greg Critser.  It's kind of slow going, but simply amazing to me to see how the drug biz has changed over the years...a lot of unsavory stuff revealed.  Interesting read so far, tho.

Yeah, to be clear, I beleive that reps are not even allowed to set foot onsite.

In a case like a governmental ban on a propellant in a medication, the gov. should have prevented anyone from profiting from a new patent to an existing drug, simply because the propellant had to be changed.  

 

 

If the government was going to mandate a change in the formulation, but mandate a generic-type price, who is going to pay a company for developing and validating the new formulation? 

The office staff is the most disappointed the gifts are no longer available. The docs don't see a lot of this stuff. I agree that if docs are influenced by a pen, then something is wrong. BUT, years ago before my time, if you take them to a football game (s), maybe that has impact?????

There is plenty of research out there (that I don't have time today to pull) showing that across the board, healthcare providers are influenced by gifts of any sort, whether they be trips to Aruba or cheap pens that break after 2 scripts.  ALL people are influenced.