the pharma firms are probably spending that amount on lobbying to stop it..
April 25, 2006 at 1:54 PM
Anonymous
said...
No doubt there will be the usual New Labour bollocks about commercial confidentiality wheeled out to try to hide the appallingly bad deals (for the taxpayer) that the NHS has tied itself into for drug supplies. Ultimately the NHS as it currently exists is simply unsustainable and if it wasn't for the insanely dogmatic left wing insistence that health care must be both paid for and provided by the state alone then we would all have a much better health service, just like they do in mixed provision nations such as Germany.
the only problem with this excellent idea is that this govt would need to build a bureaucracy to administer it. they would want 1.min £50k p.a. for managers,£20k outside London for basic secretarial staff 2.inflation proof 2/3 final salary pension scheme that can be claimed after 15 months service 3. 2 years maternity leave-fully paid 4.6 weeks annual leave 5.a massive building(somewhat like the Scottish Parliament ie new and way too big for their needs),who's infrastructure could be run by a decent outsourcing firm,say capita for instance. 6. and of course,noone with any medical competence should be allowed within fifty feet of the building.
Maybe it's just better to carry on having the best year the NHS has ever had.
Incidentally, Guido is a card carrying anarcho-capitalist (depending on how much alcohol is in his system).
April 25, 2006 at 2:16 PM
Anonymous
said...
Do the generic versions of the drugs have to go through NHS safety checks and tests before they can be put to use? If they do, then the savings may not be as great as estimated. If they don't, then it would seem a no-brainer.
pope - Of course Guido is a Tory. You might be getting confused with his partner in (podcast) crime, Recess Monkey, who is very definitely Labour.
April 25, 2006 at 2:17 PM
Anonymous
said...
You may think the NHS wastes money, well not the Donacster West Primary Care Trust I assure you!
Here is there glossary of Yorkshire Medical Terms:
hannibal thanks for the link' 'I've got fishdocks' apparently is to have an odiferous vaginal discharge.Pure class.
April 25, 2006 at 2:52 PM
Anonymous
said...
Lord Sainsbury used to bankroll Progress, which then engaged in campaign work on behalf of the party that didn't show up in any returns to the Electoral Commission. Why this has eluded both Inspector Knacker and the fourth estate is beyond me as you don't have far to look.
April 25, 2006 at 3:27 PM
Anonymous
said...
Similarly, as regards all three parties, look at how enobled supporters dished their money out after donning ermine as well as before they got their honours.
I was under the impression this was common practice. I am on some generic drugs for life and they're always from different manufacturers(including the lisinopril). different parts of the country have different suppliers too. that's surely what the recent fraud charges were about no?
April 25, 2006 at 3:39 PM
Anonymous
said...
I think we have a few political hacks blogging who don't know much about either business or pharma. 1. Countless studies show that lower the profit margin in any industry the lower the amount spent on innovation. I've worked in business for some of the largest corporations in the world and I can tell you with absolute certainty that those countries in which we make less money we invest less in R&D and vice versa. Less profit = less new drugs = you all die sooner and in more pain. 2. Pharma is one of the few industries in which Britain genuinely leads the world. I'm not surprised that Liberals are happy to bash successful British businesses, but I'm surprised that Conservatives are.
April 25, 2006 at 3:39 PM
Anonymous
said...
Matt
Working and living part time in Germany I have some detailed knowledge of the German system. It is very expensive. Everyone in employment has to pay health insurance on top of normal taxes ( which are a bit higher than here in the UK ). Even for a 25 year old single person the minimum cost will be €150 - €200 per month probably more. The cost for a family would be in the area of €600 - €700 per month and I know people were the cost is over €1000 per month. Effectively that's a minimum of £120 additional health tax per month for a single person and £ 400 for a family. The costs are income related so low earners might not pay quite so much (income less than say £25K).
In some respects things are a bit better but mostly very similar to here. I have had to sit in A & E with a friend for two hours waiting to see a doctor followed by the usual waits for xrays etc. There probably are more doctors (though many complain that they are seriously underpaid and overworked), and hospital food seems a little better. Waiting times for a consultant appointment for possible cancer treatment seems a little shorter say a week or so compared to a recent experience here of 2 - 3 weeks.
Of course where profit margins are less you spend less on R&D. There's less money to spend. It's the proportion of the money they make that is spent on R&D that is the problem - it's not very much.
This being the case, why couldn't a) they spend more on saving the lives of us miserable sinners? b) they charge less for their wonderdrugs?
It is undeniably true that pharmaceutical companies spend huge amounts on lobbying governments and advertising. Indeed, I understand that the total that is spent on research and development pales into insignificance compared to the amount spent on advertising those drugs.
It was pharmaceutical companies who sued South Africa for giving cheap drugs to those dying of AIDS, and then had to back down because people around the world just wouldn't stand for it. Why do you think they backed down? They thought it might damage business.
So, my apologies if I won't suspend my liberal cynicism that tells me a lot of people in the industry are motivated purely by profit, and are willing to engage in less-than-moral practices to get more of it.
April 25, 2006 at 4:10 PM
Anonymous
said...
Mark Before some other pedant gets in, it should be "FEWER new drugs".
April 25, 2006 at 4:11 PM
Anonymous
said...
Course, while I wrote Matt, I was directing the contents of my spleen at Mark. Apologies matt.
April 25, 2006 at 4:13 PM
Anonymous
said...
Mark Clarke,
1. If Big Pharma spent less on marketing and more on research that would be plausible. They spend far more on marketing than research, they employ more salespeople than researchers.
2. Pharma derives most of its profits from the taxpayer - Conservatives should be very suspicious of the industry.
3. Pharma makes monopoly level profits.
April 25, 2006 at 4:14 PM
Anonymous
said...
"Less profit = less new drugs = you all die sooner and in more pain."
But this premiss isn't quite right. Most genuinely new types of drug are developed with government funding in universities or other state funded research institutes, such as the NIH in the US. Drug companies spend enormous amounts of money developing copycat drugs, so they can compete for market share once a market for a new agent has been opened up in western countries which can afford to buy their product.
New Zealand's extremely hard line drug buying policies make it one of the few western countries which have no growth in (state) drug expenditure. It now has somewhat fewer new drugs than other western countries as a consequence, but they don't seem to have all died yet. The drug industry was so concerned about New Zealand's policies (as a precedent, the NZ market is tiddly by international standards) that it took the NZ government to the Privy Council three times in (failed) attempts to oppose the drug pricing system.
April 25, 2006 at 6:12 PM
Anonymous
said...
Sorry if this is boring and technical, but I think you've slightly misunderstood Hemming's point, and your commenters certainly have. Generic grugs are almost always cheaper than branded ("proprietary" in the jargon). For example Prozac 20mg costs £15 for a packet of 30, generic fluoxetine, chemically the same, costs about £1. There are clearly savings to be made here. That, however, was not what Hemming was talking about. When a drug goes off patent and a generic form becomes available the wholesale price drops like a stone. The payments made by the NHS to the pharamcists or doctors who supply drugs on prescription are slow to catch up, so in the first year after a drug is off patent the retail pharmacists can make big money, because in the example above they are buying their drugs for a pound, and being paid £15 for them. The system catches up eventually, but it can take months or even years. So the savings to be made would not be at the expense of the "Big Pharma" companies but of the retail chemists.
April 25, 2006 at 6:36 PM
Anonymous
said...
i was talking about this with a pharmist friend of mine. The Pharmacy is making a fortune by doing this.
April 25, 2006 at 6:53 PM
Anonymous
said...
Thank you, Anon 6:36; that makes things much clearer.
I was rather suprised by the initial implication that the NHS wasn't using generics. My friend Linacre assures me that Physicians normally prescribe the generic drug; indeed, their computers default to the generic name.
By contrast, is no suprise that the NHS beaurocracy is slow to react; and it is not that suprising that the price of that sloth, multiplied nationally, is so high.
Incidentally, there are (rare)occasions when a branded drug has a different delivery system to the generic alternative. This is one of the justifications for prescribing a branded version; even though the active ingredient is the same, the branded version gets more of it to the site of action, and therefore gets a better response.
April 25, 2006 at 7:36 PM
Anonymous
said...
Anonymous is correct - the £500 million quoted is the difference between the *actual* cost of some generic medicines and what DoH pays for them - and has nothing to do with 'Big Pharma'. In other words, community pharmacy retains £500m in profit (on purchasing of generics). BUT... this figure is no secret at DoH. When the English pharmacy contract was negotiated (the Scottish one is similar), it was accepted that a purchase profit had to be left in the system as a mechanism/incentive to drive down prices - prices ultimately paid by the taxpayer. Since it was also accepted that this £500m in effect part-funded the service, any attempt to reduce or remove it would need to be matched by an equivalent increase in professional fees - the net result being cost-neutral to community pharmacy and DoH, but ultimately costing the taxpayer money since the downward pressure on prices would disappear. The Lib-Dem MP who has identified a 'saving' is quite clearly an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, i.e. A Politician.
April 25, 2006 at 7:50 PM
Anonymous
said...
Talking of idiots... I've just realised 'anonymous' is a generic name. The comment above is mine (James) and the anonymous to whom I referred was the guy that said he was being boring and technical, but in fact got closer to the truth than anyone else. Regards, James
April 25, 2006 at 7:52 PM
Anonymous
said...
Yes and no, James. Yes, there has to be profit in community pharmacy, but no I don't think Hemming is an idiot. The short-term profits on drug which have recently come off patent can be very large indeed, much larger than envisaged in the pharmacists' contract, and are analogous to the windfall profits made by oil companies when the oil price goes up. I apologised before about being technical and boring because Guido likes wit and subtlety in his comments section, and the pharmacy contract and the Drug Tariff don't lend themselves to either.
I'm sorry, but I think he is... :-) Since a few generics manufactures ripped the pish out of the system a few years ago (coming to a High Court near you soon!) DoH have had access to 'factory gate' prices for generic medicines. They now use this information to set the Drug Tariff so that the *total* profit available in the system is around £500m. Any less and they need to increase fees, any more and they bloody well make sure they get it back! Even though new off-patent drugs may seem to give high margins, this is offset by low margins in the rest. Furthermore, a recent rash of 'blockbusters' coming off-patent (Statins, ACE inhibitors, PPIs, SSRIs) caused a one-off spike in profitability at this end of the scale (matched, of course, by a reduction in margin on the rest). Hemming has mistakenly extrapolated these figures to reach his magic £500m. It's also noteworthy that there are few blockbusters left in the system waiting to go off-patent. (All the good stuff now is aimed at the lifestyle market from day 1, and doesn't have much of an impact on NHS costs). So to answer anonymous 1's point, the short-term mega profits are easily identified by DoH, they're included in the £500m retained-profit calculation, they pay for the distribution network (community pharmacy) and you can't get them back! Regards, James (anonymous 2) PS What do you mean the Drug Tariff lacks wit and subtlety? It's my un-put-downable night-time reading!
April 25, 2006 at 9:11 PM
Anonymous
said...
James, if Guido had wanted a medical or pharmaceutical blog, he would have called himself Doctor Lopez. He has already said that he found this thread an education, and I for one take that to be a threat. However, I think your figures are slightly off. If £500M if the total retained dispensing profit for UK community pharmacy, I'll be holidaying at Butlin's this year. Again.
Anon 6:36
April 25, 2006 at 9:46 PM
Anonymous
said...
Fascinating stuff. Generics can be different from brand-name drugs, but generally not in their active ingredients. And Big Pharma makes a killing during the period during which they have an exclusive, so let's not cry into our NeoCitran for them(or UK equivalent, sorry). That there's this much money in "Bureaucracy Backlog" would surprise no-one who's ever worked for a national, federal, or extra-federal government. What's really paranoia-building is the implication that it's not an unhappy accident, but rather built into the system by people who knew it would turn out this way.
Always useful to see where the people who drafted these laws ended up. Lobbying? Pharmacy owners?
April 25, 2006 at 9:51 PM
Anonymous
said...
To be fair to Big Pharma, the profit they make during the 'exclusive' period needs to pay for the MASSIVE developement costs (R&D, regulatory, and lets not forget all the stuff they try to bring to market that ends up in the bin...). Big risk, big (potential) profit. It's the way of the world. And don't ever forget - how many useful pharmaceuticals did the USSR or China ever invent? Regards, James PS Mind you, they are lying scumbags half the time. In fact, what am I doing defending them? I'm off for a lie down...
Has anyone brought up this story yet? If they have, I apologize; must be the allergy medicine...
(Reuters) - Brand-name drug makers are striking more deals with generic rivals to restrict the introduction of cheaper generic drugs, antitrust authorities said on Monday.
Two Jags Has Two Shags showed up in my reader as the latest story but it seems to have been deleted. What was this?
April 26, 2006 at 9:34 AM
Anonymous
said...
Interesting fact: In 2002 10 of the US Fortune 500 firms where pharmaceutical companies.
Those 10 companies had a total revenue that was larger than that for the other 490 firms combined.
April 26, 2006 at 12:00 PM
Anonymous
said...
Why not just buy generic drugs all the time?
Then, after a while, there will be no new ones any more and you'll be saved the bother of paying for them!
April 27, 2006 at 12:20 PM
Anonymous
said...
Oh and btw RED TAMARIN, your comment shows such utter and abysmal ignorance of the way the Pharma industry and its regulators work, that really you should hang your head in shame and resolve to keep quiet on these kind of threads, until you know a bit more.
37 comments:
the pharma firms are probably spending that amount on lobbying to stop it..
No doubt there will be the usual New Labour bollocks about commercial confidentiality wheeled out to try to hide the appallingly bad deals (for the taxpayer) that the NHS has tied itself into for drug supplies. Ultimately the NHS as it currently exists is simply unsustainable and if it wasn't for the insanely dogmatic left wing insistence that health care must be both paid for and provided by the state alone then we would all have a much better health service, just like they do in mixed provision nations such as Germany.
the only problem with this excellent idea is that this govt would need to build a bureaucracy to administer it.
they would want
1.min £50k p.a. for managers,£20k outside London for basic secretarial staff
2.inflation proof 2/3 final salary pension scheme that can be claimed after 15 months service
3. 2 years maternity leave-fully paid
4.6 weeks annual leave
5.a massive building(somewhat like the Scottish Parliament ie new and way too big for their needs),who's infrastructure could be run by a decent outsourcing firm,say capita for instance.
6. and of course,noone with any medical competence should be allowed within fifty feet of the building.
Maybe it's just better to carry on having the best year the NHS has ever had.
That's Recess Monkey his co-podcaster!
Clue was in the "Guido and the Monkey" title.
Incidentally, Guido is a card carrying anarcho-capitalist (depending on how much alcohol is in his system).
Do the generic versions of the drugs have to go through NHS safety checks and tests before they can be put to use? If they do, then the savings may not be as great as estimated. If they don't, then it would seem a no-brainer.
pope - Of course Guido is a Tory. You might be getting confused with his partner in (podcast) crime, Recess Monkey, who is very definitely Labour.
You may think the NHS wastes money, well not the Donacster West Primary Care Trust I assure you!
Here is there glossary of Yorkshire Medical Terms:
http://www.doncasterwestpct.nhs.uk/uploads/reports/GlossaryforInternationalRecruits.pdf
hannibal thanks for the link'
'I've got fishdocks' apparently is to have an odiferous vaginal discharge.Pure class.
Lord Sainsbury used to bankroll Progress, which then engaged in campaign work on behalf of the party that didn't show up in any returns to the Electoral Commission. Why this has eluded both Inspector Knacker and the fourth estate is beyond me as you don't have far to look.
Similarly, as regards all three parties, look at how enobled supporters dished their money out after donning ermine as well as before they got their honours.
I was under the impression this was common practice. I am on some generic drugs for life and they're always from different manufacturers(including the lisinopril). different parts of the country have different suppliers too. that's surely what the recent fraud charges were about no?
I think we have a few political hacks blogging who don't know much about either business or pharma.
1. Countless studies show that lower the profit margin in any industry the lower the amount spent on innovation. I've worked in business for some of the largest corporations in the world and I can tell you with absolute certainty that those countries in which we make less money we invest less in R&D and vice versa. Less profit = less new drugs = you all die sooner and in more pain.
2. Pharma is one of the few industries in which Britain genuinely leads the world. I'm not surprised that Liberals are happy to bash successful British businesses, but I'm surprised that Conservatives are.
Matt
Working and living part time in Germany I have some detailed knowledge of the German system. It is very expensive. Everyone in employment has to pay health insurance on top of normal taxes ( which are a bit higher than here in the UK ). Even for a 25 year old single person the minimum cost will be €150 - €200 per month probably more. The cost for a family would be in the area of €600 - €700 per month and I know people were the cost is over €1000 per month. Effectively that's a minimum of £120 additional health tax per month for a single person and £ 400 for a family. The costs are income related so low earners might not pay quite so much (income less than say £25K).
In some respects things are a bit better but mostly very similar to here. I have had to sit in A & E with a friend for two hours waiting to see a doctor followed by the usual waits for xrays etc. There probably are more doctors (though many complain that they are seriously underpaid and overworked), and hospital food seems a little better. Waiting times for a consultant appointment for possible cancer treatment seems a little shorter say a week or so compared to a recent experience here of 2 - 3 weeks.
The NHS already buys generic drugs, of course but then this sort of thing happens
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7456/12-a
Matt.
Of course where profit margins are less you spend less on R&D. There's less money to spend. It's the proportion of the money they make that is spent on R&D that is the problem - it's not very much.
This being the case, why couldn't a) they spend more on saving the lives of us miserable sinners?
b) they charge less for their wonderdrugs?
It is undeniably true that pharmaceutical companies spend huge amounts on lobbying governments and advertising. Indeed, I understand that the total that is spent on research and development pales into insignificance compared to the amount spent on advertising those drugs.
It was pharmaceutical companies who sued South Africa for giving cheap drugs to those dying of AIDS, and then had to back down because people around the world just wouldn't stand for it. Why do you think they backed down? They thought it might damage business.
So, my apologies if I won't suspend my liberal cynicism that tells me a lot of people in the industry are motivated purely by profit, and are willing to engage in less-than-moral practices to get more of it.
Mark
Before some other pedant gets in, it should be "FEWER new drugs".
Course, while I wrote Matt, I was directing the contents of my spleen at Mark. Apologies matt.
Mark Clarke,
1. If Big Pharma spent less on marketing and more on research that would be plausible. They spend far more on marketing than research, they employ more salespeople than researchers.
2. Pharma derives most of its profits from the taxpayer - Conservatives should be very suspicious of the industry.
3. Pharma makes monopoly level profits.
"Less profit = less new drugs = you all die sooner and in more pain."
But this premiss isn't quite right. Most genuinely new types of drug are developed with government funding in universities or other state funded research institutes, such as the NIH in the US. Drug companies spend enormous amounts of money developing copycat drugs, so they can compete for market share once a market for a new agent has been opened up in western countries which can afford to buy their product.
New Zealand's extremely hard line drug buying policies make it one of the few western countries which have no growth in (state) drug expenditure. It now has somewhat fewer new drugs than other western countries as a consequence, but they don't seem to have all died yet. The drug industry was so concerned about New Zealand's policies (as a precedent, the NZ market is tiddly by international standards) that it took the NZ government to the Privy Council three times in (failed) attempts to oppose the drug pricing system.
Sorry if this is boring and technical, but I think you've slightly misunderstood Hemming's point, and your commenters certainly have.
Generic grugs are almost always cheaper than branded ("proprietary" in the jargon). For example Prozac 20mg costs £15 for a packet of 30, generic fluoxetine, chemically the same, costs about £1. There are clearly savings to be made here.
That, however, was not what Hemming was talking about. When a drug goes off patent and a generic form becomes available the wholesale price drops like a stone. The payments made by the NHS to the pharamcists or doctors who supply drugs on prescription are slow to catch up, so in the first year after a drug is off patent the retail pharmacists can make big money, because in the example above they are buying their drugs for a pound, and being paid £15 for them. The system catches up eventually, but it can take months or even years. So the savings to be made would not be at the expense of the "Big Pharma" companies but of the retail chemists.
i was talking about this with a pharmist friend of mine. The Pharmacy is making a fortune by doing this.
Thank you, Anon 6:36; that makes things much clearer.
I was rather suprised by the initial implication that the NHS wasn't using generics. My friend Linacre assures me that Physicians normally prescribe the generic drug; indeed, their computers default to the generic name.
By contrast, is no suprise that the NHS beaurocracy is slow to react; and it is not that suprising that the price of that sloth, multiplied nationally, is so high.
Incidentally, there are (rare)occasions when a branded drug has a different delivery system to the generic alternative. This is one of the justifications for prescribing a branded version; even though the active ingredient is the same, the branded version gets more of it to the site of action, and therefore gets a better response.
Anonymous is correct - the £500 million quoted is the difference between the *actual* cost of some generic medicines and what DoH pays for them - and has nothing to do with 'Big Pharma'. In other words, community pharmacy retains £500m in profit (on purchasing of generics). BUT... this figure is no secret at DoH. When the English pharmacy contract was negotiated (the Scottish one is similar), it was accepted that a purchase profit had to be left in the system as a mechanism/incentive to drive down prices - prices ultimately paid by the taxpayer. Since it was also accepted that this £500m in effect part-funded the service, any attempt to reduce or remove it would need to be matched by an equivalent increase in professional fees - the net result being cost-neutral to community pharmacy and DoH, but ultimately costing the taxpayer money since the downward pressure on prices would disappear. The Lib-Dem MP who has identified a 'saving' is quite clearly an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, i.e. A Politician.
Talking of idiots... I've just realised 'anonymous' is a generic name. The comment above is mine (James) and the anonymous to whom I referred was the guy that said he was being boring and technical, but in fact got closer to the truth than anyone else. Regards, James
Yes and no, James. Yes, there has to be profit in community pharmacy, but no I don't think Hemming is an idiot. The short-term profits on drug which have recently come off patent can be very large indeed, much larger than envisaged in the pharmacists' contract, and are analogous to the windfall profits made by oil companies when the oil price goes up. I apologised before about being technical and boring because Guido likes wit and subtlety in his comments section, and the pharmacy contract and the Drug Tariff don't lend themselves to either.
Anon 6:36
It has been an education this thread.
I'm sorry, but I think he is... :-) Since a few generics manufactures ripped the pish out of the system a few years ago (coming to a High Court near you soon!) DoH have had access to 'factory gate' prices for generic medicines. They now use this information to set the Drug Tariff so that the *total* profit available in the system is around £500m. Any less and they need to increase fees, any more and they bloody well make sure they get it back! Even though new off-patent drugs may seem to give high margins, this is offset by low margins in the rest. Furthermore, a recent rash of 'blockbusters' coming off-patent (Statins, ACE inhibitors, PPIs, SSRIs) caused a one-off spike in profitability at this end of the scale (matched, of course, by a reduction in margin on the rest). Hemming has mistakenly extrapolated these figures to reach his magic £500m. It's also noteworthy that there are few blockbusters left in the system waiting to go off-patent. (All the good stuff now is aimed at the lifestyle market from day 1, and doesn't have much of an impact on NHS costs). So to answer anonymous 1's point, the short-term mega profits are easily identified by DoH, they're included in the £500m retained-profit calculation, they pay for the distribution network (community pharmacy) and you can't get them back! Regards, James (anonymous 2) PS What do you mean the Drug Tariff lacks wit and subtlety? It's my un-put-downable night-time reading!
James, if Guido had wanted a medical or pharmaceutical blog, he would have called himself Doctor Lopez. He has already said that he found this thread an education, and I for one take that to be a threat.
However, I think your figures are slightly off. If £500M if the total retained dispensing profit for UK community pharmacy, I'll be holidaying at Butlin's this year. Again.
Anon 6:36
Fascinating stuff. Generics can be different from brand-name drugs, but generally not in their active ingredients. And Big Pharma makes a killing during the period during which they have an exclusive, so let's not cry into our NeoCitran for them(or UK equivalent, sorry). That there's this much money in "Bureaucracy Backlog" would surprise no-one who's ever worked for a national, federal, or extra-federal government. What's really paranoia-building is the implication that it's not an unhappy accident, but rather built into the system by people who knew it would turn out this way.
Always useful to see where the people who drafted these laws ended up. Lobbying? Pharmacy owners?
To be fair to Big Pharma, the profit they make during the 'exclusive' period needs to pay for the MASSIVE developement costs (R&D, regulatory, and lets not forget all the stuff they try to bring to market that ends up in the bin...). Big risk, big (potential) profit. It's the way of the world. And don't ever forget - how many useful pharmaceuticals did the USSR or China ever invent? Regards, James PS Mind you, they are lying scumbags half the time. In fact, what am I doing defending them? I'm off for a lie down...
Soviet medical inventions so there!
http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2005/200503/news03/29.htm#8
Has anyone brought up this story yet? If they have, I apologize; must be the allergy medicine...
(Reuters) - Brand-name drug makers are striking more deals with generic rivals to restrict the introduction of cheaper generic drugs, antitrust authorities said on Monday.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-04-24T224431Z_01_N24311721_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-PATENTS-FTC-DC.XML
Two Jags Has Two Shags showed up in my reader as the latest story but it seems to have been deleted. What was this?
Interesting fact: In 2002 10 of the US Fortune 500 firms where pharmaceutical companies.
Those 10 companies had a total revenue that was larger than that for the other 490 firms combined.
Why not just buy generic drugs all the time?
Then, after a while, there will be no new ones any more and you'll be saved the bother of paying for them!
Oh and btw RED TAMARIN, your comment shows such utter and abysmal ignorance of the way the Pharma industry and its regulators work, that really you should hang your head in shame and resolve to keep quiet on these kind of threads, until you know a bit more.
The issue of Pharmaceuticals is a complex one. However, I am not going to let it go.
It is one of my test cases on my campaign for accountable government.