Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
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…
The generic share of total prescriptions dispensed in the US increased from 14% when the Hatch-Waxman legislation was passed [1984] to 42% by 2000 and 92% today. James C. Robinson in JAMA 2022
That is part due to the squeeze on generic drug pricing from group purchasing organizations and others. This 60 Minutes report is interesting.
Today, the Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its 2021 Annual Report. As noted in the report, 90% of all drugs dispensed in the US are generic. In 2021, there were 776 approved generic drugs through the Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDA) process. Approvals by month are below.…
That is the title of an article by Angela Maas in Radar on Specialty pharmacy (reprinted here). A few excerpts: “Although state governments frequently pay for health care through programs such as Medicaid, in the past, state governments have not manufactured drugs,” says Jason Shafrin, vice president of health economics at PRECISIONheor. “Thus, this is a…
Much of my blog discusses the value of new, innovative treatments. In the current patent environment, drug patents expire and low cost generics enter the market. This results in huge surplus value accruing to consumers. However, those benefits only occur if the supply of effective, low-cost generic medication reach patients. Unfortunately, that is not always…
While the high price of branded drugs often gets a lot of attention in the public, few realize that after patent expiration, prices often plunge dramatically and high quality treatments are available for extremely affordable prices. Granlund and Bergman (2018) estimate the size of this price reduction using data from Sweden. In the long term,…
Dana Goldman–my colleague at PHE and a professor at USC–offers three suggestions on how to prevent generic products from increasing their prices drastically as occurred in the EpiPen saga. In Stat News, he makes three recommendations: First, Congress should mandate that the Federal Trade Commission report on the availability of all such drugs and devices…
Many of Medicare’s value-based purchasing (VBP) initiatives offer a continuum of rewards based on provider performance. Whereas all-or-nothing VBP initiatives only grant bonuses to providers who exceed a single threshold, the Medicare VBP programs–such as its hospital VBP program–reward hospitals based a value-based modifier that is proportional to its quality score. One of the reasons…
GoozNews reports that “the Senate Judiciary Committee…passed legislation prohibiting brand name drug manufacturers from paying off generic manufacturers in patent disputes. They get the money in exchange for not bringing the cheaper drug to market.” Is this a wise move for Congress? The main question one should ask is why brand name manufacturers pay off generic…