Healthy Skepticism Library item: 13271

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Prescription drugs, Protection racket: Drug patent-holders under pressure
The Economist (US) 2001 May 194
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_GNSQQG

Abstract:

“IF YOU can’t beat them, bribe them” is an age-old business tactic, but it is coming under fire in the pharmaceutical industry. On May 14th, 15 American states sued Aventis, a Franco-German drug group, and Andrx, an American generic-drug maker. The suit claims Aventis paid Andrx almost $90m to delay the introduction of a cheaper, generic version of one of Aventis’s bestselling heart drugs when its American patent expired in 1998. The states are claiming $100m in compensation for the higher prices they have had to pay in the absence of generic alternatives. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) concluded that the arrangement between Aventis and Andrx had blocked others’ entry to the market.

The FTC has several other drug companies in its sights. It has filed suit against Schering-Plough and two generic-drug companies for similar machinations to delay the launch of generic versions of K-D ur, another patented heart medicine. It is investigating possible collusion between Bristol-Myers Squibb and American Bioscience over Taxol, an anti-cancer drug. And it is preparing to launch a wider probe into anti-competitive practices among brand-name and generic-drug makers, which could put as many as 90 American drug companies under the microscope…