Aaron Carroll reports on drug companies efforts to avoid competition.
For years, big drug companies have been paying their competitors to keep cheaper generic competition off the shelves. That way the larger company can keep charging really high prices for their drug without competition. The smaller companies get big payoffs, and don’t have to do anything at all. Everyone wins. Well, except the rest of the country:
Last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a Senate bill to outlaw such payments would save the federal government $4.8 billion over 10 years and would lower drug costs in the United States by $11 billion. The legislation remains stalled in the Senate. The federal government is a major buyer of drugs through Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Such agreements were just ruled illegal by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals because they are anticompetitive. The drug companies disagree, of course.
The generic producers make a lot of money for doing nothing, and the big pharma companies continue to make large profits on drugs that are off patent. However, for the rest of us, costs go up with no improvement in care. This is just one of the many items that contribute to our health care being the most expensive in the world. This, at least, should be fixable.
Good thing they got a backroom deal on ObamaCare to protect their profits in exchange for giving it political support!
Of course, you have some background references to establish the accuracy of this assertion?
Sounds like price fixing to me. For several years, I took Diovan for my blood pressure. A few years ago the patent for this drug was set to run out. (You would know more about this process than I.) And, it would be eligible for generic production. The maker of Diovan changed the formula slightly and, thus, got new patent for however many years one lasts. Sounded quite fishy to me, but the FDA apparently went a long with it.
The more straightforward scam is changing the dose and giving the drug a new name, extending the patent length.
Steve
Seems like the big fuss over importing drugs from Canada would be related to this.
Indeed. Drug re-importation would end the U.S. consumer subsidizing drug development for the entire world.
Too bad Big Pharma lobbyists bought off Congress and the Obama Administation!
Drug reimportation could have been done under any US president. Since 1980, we have mostly had GOP presidents, so I am not sure how this is a Dem only problem. OTOH, the GOP has systematically opposed cost effectiveness research. We are somehow just supposed to magically know which drugs give the best returns for money spent, which does not happen.
Steve
Hmmmmm. . . it seems more than a little hypocritical for any physician to call out “Big Pharam,” when every physician who prescribes meds or uses a given pharmaceutical product is married to that particular producer. If a doctor prescribes Zocor (for high cholesterol) for instance, then he ONLY prescribes Merck products.
Physicians prescribe EITHER one brand OR the other, for high cholesterol, it’s probably EITHER Zocor OR Crestor, depending solely upon which major pharmaceutical Co. that doctor is wedded to (for profit). It’s a Coke – Pepsi kind of deal (you DON’T sell Coke in a “Pepsi store” and you don’t prescribe Pfizer products in a “Merck doctor’s office”) and it’s a win-win for drug makers, the U.S. government and physicians. . .for patients, maybe not as much of a good deal, but it’s very, VERY good for Pharmaceutical Companies and physicians and their government partners.
I don’t get the idea of “biting the hand that feeds you.”
It’s sort of like the store owner bashing Coke for “collusion” while stuffing his own pockets full of Coca-Cola bucks.
I practiced for a number of years and cannot recall a single instance where a drug company offered me a rebate, bribe, favor, etc for prescribing their drug, JMK. I did accept occasional donuts (especially if I had missed a couple meals while in the OR).
I would be interested in your providing some sort of backing for your apparent assumption that any doctor prescribing a named drug is on the payroll of a big pharma {“depending solely upon which major pharmaceutical Co. that doctor is wedded to (for profit). “)
Clearly there is a lot of brand name and patent protection fudging and that should be regulated and eliminated. Given the rather high percentage of physicians who are employed rather than in solo practice at this point, management of relations with drug companies can and should be dealt with by their employers. In my experience, the Army and Humana were quite strong on that relationship.
Not true. Many patients wont tolerate some statins. You need to adjust them to the patient. I think most docs develop a comfort level with some drugs, so they may start off with the same one, but then they meed to change if the response is poor.
Steve
EVERY physician I’ve ever went to prescribed meds strictly from one “favored supplier.”
Is that only found in the NY Metro area?
I DON’T have a problem with that (though more transparency would be helpful). I don’t believe there are ANY healthcare practitioners support “free healthcare for all.” They ALL expect to be paid, just like anyone else providing a service.
No plumber has ever called for “free plumbing for all,” though some might IF they could get a government scam going by which government pays plumbers exorbitant rates (at taxpayer expense….Shhhhhh….they don’t know they’re really paying double or triple what the real cost should be) that the taxpayers never see as “costs. . .they’re just “taxes.”.
No, the vast majority of American physicians appear to be devoted to a “fee for service” model, although some greedily seem to very much like the idea of government billing people’s paychecks so that they can rake in bigger profits/compensations without having to experience any of the angst over seeing what some of their lower-income patients might have to give up in terms of quality of life to pay them.
Like I said, I DON’T blame them! Doctors are humans and as such, they suffer ALL the flaws of human nature we all do.
I’m just a little wary about the floodgates getting opened. Once plumbers, electricians, food-growers and preparers, etc. get on to this con, I fear we’re all cooked.
The majority of physicians completing training have, for a number of years now, have gone to salaried positions, not private or group practice. Fees are assessed by “fee for service” models but that is by their employer, not the individuals.
PS, rather than rely on my admittedly defective memory, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/health/policy/26docs.html?pagewanted=all for the data and a pretty chart.