Dr. Jensen: How The Influx of Generic Drugs Affects You

The end of last year marked the beginning of what many industry folks call the "patent cliff."  Over the next 2 years many of the most popular brand name prescriptions drugs will lose their exclusivity and patent rights allowing for other companies to make a competing generic product. As many people know generics drugs represent a cost savings to both the pharmacy, patient and healthcare system as a whole. Brand name products are extremely expensive to keep on the shelf and anyone that has been on a brand name product for long enough know that the copays that insurance companies require are getting higher and higher every year.  So this is good news for most involved, the drug companies are not real happy about this however. 

We all know that drug companies are not researching and developing drugs out of the kindness of their collective hearts and are looking to make profits, even as obscene as the amounts seem to the everyday joe. We do have a system in place to protect their hard work and allow drug companies years to make make back the money is costs to bring the product to market and to continue to develop other drugs. After this time though, many companies will still fight to hold on to their market share through copay programs, court battles and seemingly shady deals with generic companies not to ship the generic product. Lipitor was the top selling drug in the world and Pfizer's gravy train for many years. The expectation of losing this patent and the proceeds were partly to blame for the closing of the facility in Ann Arbor. Pfizer responded to the loss with copay cards that would pay a portion of the patients higher copay than the generic thus keeping people on their product which is nothing new many companies use this strategy. However there is an investigation into the matter of Pfizer giving rebates to Medco Health to not cover the generic product on some of their plans.  Once this came out of course Medco states that they had no intention of keeping all of the rebates for themselves.  Shady dealings indeed. 

So if all goes well this year we will be seeing some huge generics available in the next  6 months. A partial list being: Lexapro, Geodon, Boniva, Seroquel, Avalide, Plavix, Provigil and Lescol.  Big names and big money saving potential.  That is if the drug companies play nice.  And don't psyche yourself out and believe that you are allergic to all generics or that generics don't work for you.  It is true that the inactive ingredients will differ from product to product which could cause allergic reactions in small populations of people.  Also in complex release formulations there can be some variation in effect for some people.  Again a small population. There a few cases of people just not feeling right when changed from a particular product.  This would be by no means every generic product.  There are a few disease states that switching between products may not be a good thing.

Primarily thyroid products can cause people some problems when switched and also epilepsy as small differences may make a large impact in control.  Of course that doesn't preclude patients from starting on a generic and getting stable on it, and switching to the brand may cause problems.  But for the most part people can transition to generic meds will little to no problems. 

I guess one problem with the opinion of generics is the word "generics".  We tend to think of generic as something cheap and inferior to branded products (I'm looking at you Malt-o-Meal).  How many products do we purchase that are much more expensive but have the name recognition and status quality to them (I'm looking at you Apple)? Perhaps we should not extrapolate these thoughts to every aspect of our lives. And when the new cost effective therapeutic equivalents (comes off the tongue nicely compared to generics doesn't it?) come out this year we can all save some hard earned money and spend it on something far more frivolous and fun.  

Cheers 

Dr. Steven Jensen PharmD. recently opened Jensen's Community Pharmacy in Saline at The Oaks plaza. This independent pharmacy offers both traditional and compounded medications.