Consumer Reports: A Surprising Way Big Pharma Keeps Drug Prices High
Ten years ago, consumers were on the verge of getting a lower-priced, generic version of the brand name antibiotic Doryx (doxycycline). But the drug's manufacturer, Warner Chilcott, stopped making the drug in its original capsule form and instead began producing it as a tablet. This seemingly minor change meant that generic manufacturer, Mylan, was blocked from being able to market the matching generic tablet it had been developing.
Warner Chilcott is now embroiled in a lawsuit that charges it used those and similar tactics—such as adding score lines to the tablets and ceasing production of the unscored tablets—to manipulate the patent and generic laws to stay one step ahead of generic manufacturers.
That tactic, called “product hopping,” is a strategy drug makers have begun using in recent years to stall the development of generic versions of a medication so they can keep brand-name drug prices high. But it is coming under fire from the Federal Trade Commission and several consumer groups, which charge in a federal court case that it’s a violation of antitrust law that bilks consumers of millions of dollars in high drug prices.
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THE REST:
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health/suprising-way-big-pharma-keeps-drug-prices-high
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My comment:
And Republicans want to GUT Medicare due to high prices and increasing costs. AS IF MEDICARE were the problem. MEDICARE is NOT the problem! GREEDY big drug companies and insurance companies are the problem. It is absolutely necessary to REGULATE the f*ck out of them so they cannot do this type of crap (including raising the cost of a drug thousands of a percent overnight) and then costs will stop rising so much or go down.
Big pharma does this type of thing in the US because it's the ONLY country where they CAN do it -- where there are no regulations stopping them. The majority if not all the enormous profits they make selling drugs are made from US sales -- particularly Medicare Part D -- which cannot negotiate for lower prices or buy the same drugs cheaper from other countries such as Canada.
THE FACT that big corporations - including big drug companies - control our government is the ONLY reason this crap is still allowed here. We have GOT to get RID of corporate control of our representatives - get our government back under control of "We the People" (and NOT the corporate ones). That's the only way this gets fixed once and for all.
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