Generics/General
Coupons help Big Pharma to fend off generics
Pfizer’s success at using co-pay coupons to prevent patients switching from brand-name products to generics is encouraging other pharmaceutical giants to follow suit.
Canada grapples with drugs costs
Government report calls for the widening of the current scheme for brand-name medicines to include generics.
UK spending on brand-name drugs predicted to reduce
Spending by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) is under control according to a new report, and in fact spending on brand-name medicines is expected to reduce in real terms and as a proportion of the UK healthcare budget over the next three years.
Generics have their feet under the table in Malaysia
Generics manufacturing, prescribing and sales are becoming firmly part of the scene in Malaysia.
Generics companies turn to ‘third tier’ countries
With pharmaceutical growth in the doldrums in the west, and China and India are becoming increasingly confident, attention is turning to countries such as Indonesia and Turkey.
Is the pharmaceutical industry on the verge of as big a change as we have seen?
‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new’ [1]
For many years the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) negotiations have been criticised as being overly protective of the rights of large pharmaceutical companies. ‘It is unacceptable to threaten developing countries aiming to provide medicines to their populations, and disregarding international commitments to ensure access to medicines,’ ran a Médecins sans Frontières statement in 2010. ‘The US is using its trade laws to bully developing countries into applying arbitrary pharmaceutical industry requests at the expense of millions of people who depend on generic medicines in developing countries.’
Which antiplatelet agent? The debate intensifies
Plavix (clopidogrel) has been a blockbuster drug. The lower cost of generic clopidogrel, available for the first time since 17 May 2012 [1], is intensifying debate among cardiologists over how to make sure patients get optimal benefit from any blood-thinning treatment.
China follows the Indian and Thai route to affordable drugs
China announced measures for the Compulsory Licensing for Patent Implementation in a statement on 1 May 2012. The country is saying that it intends to become a generics producer for the domestic and possibly the international market.
Generics sustainability to be investigated by UK DoH and industry
The British Generic Manufacturers Association (BGMA) and the UK Department of Health (DoH) have agreed to work together to investigate potential challenges to the sustainability of the generics industry in the UK.
Clopidogrel goes off-patent: last of the old-style blockbusters
The blockbuster drug Plavix (clopidogrel), used to prevent clotting in some heart patients, comes off patent in the US on 17 May 2012, bringing to an end the run of spectacularly well-selling traditional medicines.
