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HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson yesterday approved plans allowing five states to pool their purchasing power to obtain deeper discounts from drugmakers on prescription drugs bought under the Medicaid program.
A bipartisan group that includes some of the Senate's most powerful and influential members yesterday introduced reimportation legislation its sponsors contend provides for a method of securing safe and effective Rx drugs from other countries.
The FDA is establishing a public docket to get input on activities that could reduce existing hurdles in medical product design -- including drug development -- as part of the "critical-path" initiative it announced last month.
Apotex’s generic version of GlaxoSmithKline’s antidepressant Paxil (paroxetine HCl) garnered sales of only about $150 million to $200 million during its 180-day exclusivity period — a return far smaller than what it had expected because of an authorized generic competitor.
Big pharma has successfully persuaded 24 states to amend Medicaid laws to exempt expensive therapeutic drug classes from substitution rules requiring doctors to prescribe lower-priced alternatives, according to a generic drug executive who says the situation hurts the generic industry and state coffers.
Drugmaker Schering-Plough has launched a generic version of its own hepatitis C drug Rebetol (ribavirin) — a move that some analysts say could destroy the market for generic firms already selling the product.
Generic drugmakers have joined their brand counterparts in a sharp attack against reimportation, charging that allowing the practice could endanger Americans’ safety by greatly increasing the potential for counterfeiting Rx drugs and threatening innovation fostered by free-market competition.
The brand pharmaceutical lobby has succeeded in persuading lawmakers in almost half the states to amend Medicaid laws to exempt expensive therapeutic drug classes from substitution rules requiring doctors to prescribe lower-priced alternatives, according to one generic drug executive.
Rather than looking to reimportation or price controls as remedies to the high cost of Rx drugs, the U.S. should work to ensure that European and other industrialized nations shoulder their share of the development burden, according to the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MBC).
Pharmaceutical manufacturers reiterated their opposition to drug reimportation last week at the second public meeting of the HHS Task Force on Drug Importation, maintaining their contention that it is impossible to ensure that imported drugs are safe and effective.