Sneaky deals are keeping cheaper generic medicines off the market
A bill — AB 824 — now making its way through the Legislature would prohibit agreements among drug companies involving "anything of value" changing hands to delay introduction of a generic alternative to a brand-name medicine.
The legislation already has been passed by the Assembly. It's scheduled to be voted upon Wednesday by the Senate Health Committee.
"We know these agreements happen. Everyone knows it," Assemblyman Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg), the author of the bill, told me.
[...] About 90% of all U.S. drug sales involve generics, which are intended to be cheaper alternatives to brand-name drugs once a sufficient amount of time has passed for the original maker to recoup its research and development costs.
Healthcare advocates say pharmaceutical companies figured out years ago that they can reap even greater profits by encouraging generic manufacturers to stay away from some of the most lucrative brand-name meds.
This is typically done by direct payments or promises of profit sharing, or by the brand-name maker pledging not to bring out its own "authorized" generic to compete directly with the generic manufacturer. The deals are often reached during settlements of patent litigation.
The Federal Trade Commission estimates that pay-for-delay deals cost American consumers $3.5 billion a year in the form of higher drug prices.
"Pay-for-delay agreements are 'win-win' for the companies," the FTC said in a 2010 study. "Brand-name pharmaceutical prices stay high, and the brand and generic share the benefits of the brand's monopoly profits."
A more recent analysis by the California Public Interest Research Group found that pay-for-delay deals keep cheaper generics off the market for an average of five years after patent rules allow their introduction.
This allows drug companies to charge for a brand-name med as much as 33 times what a generic alternative would cost, the analysis found.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @05:42AM (3 children)
It's anti-trust law violation, and we outta busta their balls HARD
...
We get the government we deserve.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @10:15AM (2 children)
No, sadly, it's not.
For something to be an anti-trust violation, there has to be a monopoly. And, not just a monopoly on "a thing", but on the ability to "make a thing".
But that's not what's happening here. There are loads, and loads, and loads of drug manufacturing companies who can make the drug! For example, this generic "knock off"? They can do it because the patents have expired, meaning *anyone* can start to make this knock off.
As long as they know how, and figure it out, and put the resources into it.
So, there is no monopoly. Hence, no anti-trust issue.
Note, I agree 100% that it's a clear flaw in free-market method. Yet, this sort of thing happens with ALL companies, ALL the time. It would happen with (for example) the tech world more often, but buyouts are far easier -- and often the people are just as important as the tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @05:25AM
Fuck you ignint dope. You don't need to be a monploy, collusion is enough, the same way dram makers got nailed.
Double fuck you to the moron who mod this "interesting". Ignint moron.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday July 02 2019, @01:15AM
If the incumbent manufacturer is refusing to release the samples required to perform a bioequivalence test, then the incumbent manufacturer holds the monopoly on the ability to "make a thing". This has happened for Daraprim and the like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @06:10AM
You assume you actually want to put these poisons in your body. Invalid form key error?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday June 30 2019, @07:15AM (2 children)
This is where Shkrelli came from. It's how things are done. And, it's time to put a stop to it. A parasite that takes a drop or two of your blood is annoying. The parasite that wants to bleed you dry is a threat to your life. Big pharma is the latter type of parasite. Not that they are the only leech we have to worry about, but they are one of the worst.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @01:22PM
I could see going 100% government being worse than the current corporo-gov system though. It is already so bad I don't really care though, just stay away from the healthcare system as much as possible.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @02:36PM
But this is capitalism made manifest. Why you hating on capitalism bro?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Farkus888 on Sunday June 30 2019, @10:02AM
Typical government, sounds important to get votes but barely even slows down the bad behavior. They say $3.5B because it makes it sound as important as possible. Rounding down to 300 million for population I come up with less than $12 per person per year. That isn't even a rounding error in how they fuck us. Math literacy really will destroy us.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tadas on Sunday June 30 2019, @01:17PM (3 children)
like, by telling us which country, state or municipality this article referred to? It's clearly not the US Federal government, as there's no "Assembly" in the Federal system. There's a mention of analysis by the "California Public Interest Research Group", but they could be reporting on developments anywhere. I give a -1 to the editors for this failure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @01:27PM
CA
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday June 30 2019, @05:32PM (1 child)
I think it's fairly clear that this refers to the California state legislature. But I agree it should be made much more explicit.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by tadas on Monday July 01 2019, @02:49PM
"Fairly clear"? The first mention of California is in the 9th paragraph of the submission
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 30 2019, @01:48PM (12 children)
I am a pharmacy tech, and one aspect of my job involves running peoples' prescriptions through the meatgrinder that is the US's healthcare system. Even some generics are hideously expensive if you haven't got enough or the proper coverage, and it's lifesaving stuff--think "this person can't take warfarin so she needs apixaban, and that's over $100 a bottle with no insurance" here.
Contrary to the most fondly-held prejudices of the local libertarian cohort, "the invisible hand of the free market" is *not* the optimal solution to this sort of thing. Even leaving aside natural monopolies, which it *could* be argued production facilities for some drugs like biologics are, goods and services with inelastic demand become literal "your money or your life!" hostage situations. The key fallacy of the hardcore free-marketeer is in not seeing, or refusing to countenance, the difference between a diamond ring and an insulin pen.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @01:56PM (6 children)
In a free market a 70 yr old drug like warfarin would be practically free and sold by various companies with various ratings of purity via some drug safety testing company. The US healthcare system is nothing close to a free market, it is totally and irreparably distorted by government intervention.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 30 2019, @02:10PM (4 children)
In a free market, AC, we'd be back where we were before the Pure Food and Drug Act. Don't kid yourself; humans are naturally greedy. The fact that greedheads are buying regulation does not make regulation bad any more than the fact that some people murder with guns makes guns intrinsically evil. Regulatory capture is a subversion, a perversion, of the mechanisms put in place to prevent exactly this from happening.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @02:19PM (3 children)
People at meat packing plants are still picking their ass and touching your food, now it just costs more because they wear a hair net and have periodic "inspections" that are announced weeks beforehand.
https://www.theguardian.com/animals-farmed/2018/feb/21/dirty-meat-shocking-hygiene-failings-discovered-in-us-pig-and-chicken-plants [theguardian.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @02:38PM (2 children)
This AC is why we cant have nice things. Idiots burn them down to feed the fat cats.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @04:45PM (1 child)
The reason you *do* have nice things is cheap energy in the form of oil and third world slave labor...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @11:12PM
What happens when the oil runs out? We'll just switch to electricity, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @02:13PM
AND greed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @03:26PM (4 children)
$100 a bottle? That's cheap by comparison. I take Advair for asthma and I was paying over $250 per month with no insurance because Glaxo held a fucking patent on the delivery device. The patent on the drug expired in 2010 yet the delivery device stayed on patent until 2016. The first generic arrived this year after generic manufacturers spend an entire year sabotaging each other to the FDA in hopes of being first to market. In a fair world the generic would have been released in 2010. Think about that... $750 per quarter for an extra nine years. $27,000 from one patient.
Now that's not entirely the case as I had an HSA which was partially covered by my employer, but the point stands. It is well past time for governments to curb stomp the pharmaceutical companies for their shenanigans. I have one solution I have mulled for some time. Since drug companies like to follow the street dealer's business model of the first hit's free followed by squeeze the junkie until he squeals, invalidate the patent any time the manufacturer raises prices over the rate of inflation. They can set prices anything they like ONE TIME. If they put prices into the stratosphere, their drug may never see general acceptance. If they manage to stumble onto the next Lipitor, they can't fuck the customer that becomes dependent on it or they lose exclusivity. Fair's fair.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday June 30 2019, @10:23PM (3 children)
Why can't asthma medicine be administered via commonly available vape pens?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2019, @11:04PM (1 child)
Asthma inhalers cost around $7 each over the counter no prescription required in Australia these days.
So long as you only buy one or two.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @12:57AM
I am not aware of any location anywhere in the world where Advair/Seretide is over the counter. The item you describe is most likely a rescue inhaler with Albuterol. It is not designed as a asthma management treatment but as an emergency medicine device like an Epipen to treat an asthma attack. They cost around $45 in the US and are prescription only here. They used to cost around $20 but the propellant was changed because of EPA rules and it magically became a new product.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 01 2019, @12:49AM
Different type of product. Advair is administered as a metered amount of an inhaled powder, not a vapor and not heated.