The article includes some additional quotes from yours truly, along with comments from Actavis and the GPhA. Highlights below.
In case you didn't know, Ed Silverman is now rocking his great Pharmalot blog over at the Wall Street Journal. You can follow the @Pharmalot twitter feed or subscribe via RSS.
Here's what I told Ed about generic inflation's impact:
“This is widespread,” Fein tells us. “This is not an isolated incident concerning a few drugs affecting just some patients. It’s an industrywide phenomenon and it’s not only going to become big enough to move the needle on the earnings reports for some companies, it’s a national health care issue. Because if [increases continue], it’s going to touch every one of us.”I highlighted tetracyline in Retail Generic Drug Inflation Reaches New Heights. Here's a comment from Actavis:
An Actavis spokesman sent us this: “There has been a lengthy period of time where tetracycline has not been available due to a shortage of active pharmaceutical ingredient. Manufacturers had to qualify new suppliers of the API. I believe that there is one manufacturer in the market right now which accounts for pricing. We are in the process of working to relaunch our product.”I'm very curious to see how our country's generic supply situation will play out.
Congrats on the WSJ coverage!
ReplyDeleteI do think that one other ‘culprit’ may be the PBM and plans that have seen their
ReplyDeletefinancials eroded by the “low or free” generics that some retail players have
put into play.
While
not visible to my eyes, one can imagine that consumers moving to such offerings
have upset the financial apple cart in some manner. Why should a employer
pay for a drug benefit that is 85% generic when the patients/employees can see
saving by cutting out the PBM?