![\"Walgreen\"](\"http:\/\/s.wsj.net\/media\/walgreen_C_20100114111138.jpg\")
A bunch of the blockbuster drugs that carried the drug industry for the past decade are about to go off patent. As we’ve noted along with everybody else, that’s going to be tough for pharma companies. <\/p>\nA bunch of the blockbuster drugs that carried the drug industry for the past decade are about to go off patent. As we’ve noted along with everybody else, that’s going to be tough for pharma companies. <\/p>\n
(See, for example, the news this week from Pfizer<\/a> and Bristol-Myers Squibb<\/a>, which over the next two years will face generic competition on the two biggest drugs in the world, Lipitor and Plavix.)<\/p>\n Generic manufacturers are obvious beneficiaries here. But pharmacies will also profit. Although generic drugs are far cheaper than their branded equivalents, pharmacies make higher margins from generics. <\/p>\n What’s more, the market may be undervaluing the gain CVS and Walgreen are likely to see from the wave of new generics, according to money managers quoted in a Bloomberg News story<\/a> out today.<\/p>\n The CFOs of both companies were, predictably, cautious about getting into the specifics of how much they’d benefit.<\/p>\n “It will definitely help us, but to that magnitude, considering there are other things that play in, I would hesitate to give any guidance,” Walgreen’s CFO told Bloomberg. “There are lots of moving parts in this business and different people factor them in different ways.” <\/p>\n Photo by puroticorico<\/a> via Flickr<\/em><\/p>\n A bunch of the blockbuster drugs that carried the drug industry for the past decade are about to go off patent. As we’ve noted along with everybody else, that’s going to be tough for pharma companies. (See, for example, the news this week from Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb, which over the next two years will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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