Prescription Drugs–Same Drug, Different Pill, 3/7
www.encognitive.com Same drug, different patent Anyone who watches television—where the majority of the drug industry’s $2.5 billion [that figure is now $20+ billion in 2007] a-year-and-growing advertising budget is spent—has seen commercials for AstraZeneca’s acid-reflux drug Nexium®. The ad money worked: Consumers spent $458 million on Nexium, at an average cost of $117 per prescription in 2001, the first year it was introduced. Acid-reflux sufferers could have found just as much relief in an older product that drug experts call virtually identical—Prilosec®. Ironically, Prilosec is made by the same firm that put the Nexium hype into overdrive. Is AstraZeneca cannibalizing its Prilosec profits? Not by a long shot. Prilosec’s patent was set to expire in October 2002, opening the door for other companies to jump into the market with cheaper generic versions. So by tinkering with the formula, AstraZeneca received a new patent and extra years of exclusivity to convince consumers the new product, Nexium, is not only better than the nearly indistinguishable older drug but is also worth the extra cost. The cost of prescriptions for two new oral diabetes drugs jumped 62 and 41 percent in 2001, and on average the costs for the new drugs are twice as much as for the effective older oral diabetes medicines. “The increase in prescriptions—and in spending,” writes Greider, “is largely attributable to the rapid market penetration of a small number of new, expensive best sellers.” In …