Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
If you guessed manufacturers, you would be incorrect. At least that is according to a new study by Mattingly et al. (2023) in JAMA Health Forum. Using a sample of the 45 generic drugs with >$100m in Part D and used by >1m beneficiaries, the authors found that: …Medicare Part D spent $11.8 billion for…
One piece of good news for consumers is that generic prices are falling. However, generic prices may be falling so much that drug shortages are occurring (which is not a good thing). Data from a working paper by Sardella (2023) finds a dramatic drop in generic prices in recent years. The authors claim that shortages…
Authorized generics (AGs) are generic drugs that–unlike independent generics–are sold by the brand-name drug manufacturer under a generic label. How big a role do these AGs play among Medicaid beneficiaries. A paper by Rome et al. (2023) aims to answer that using public Medicaid prescription use data between 2014 and 2020. Using these data, they…
FDA’s Office of Generic Drugs issued their 2022 Annual Report. Generic drugs play a vital role in saving patients and payers money. To give an example, pregabalin capsules cost $450 for a 30-day supply during the end of its market exclusivity period, but priced dropped to $23 (a 95% decrease) during the first 12 months…
There is even less competition then we may have thought according to a paper out this month by Socal et al. (2023): We identified a total of 565 facilities producing 1,379 unique generic APIs across forty-two countries. India, China, and Italy were the top producers; 14 percent of APIs were manufactured in the US. About a…
That is part due to the squeeze on generic drug pricing from group purchasing organizations and others. This 60 Minutes report is interesting.
Perhaps the answer is yes, if we want to have a more resilient supply chain. At least that is the argument from a commentary by Mattingly and Conti (2022): Several medications that patients need have been in short supply before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, including low-priced, off-patent generic drugs. The White House recently released…
I previously covered research from Dickson and Kent (2021) that examined how the entry of generic drugs impacts the price Medicare pays. In that study, the authors found that “the presence of 1 generic competitor was associated with a 14.9% mean price reduction in the bundled ASP, 2 generic competitors were associated with a 32.7%…