{"id":516437,"date":"2010-04-05T10:05:13","date_gmt":"2010-04-05T14:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/04\/05\/generic-business-faces-tougher-slog\/"},"modified":"2010-04-05T10:05:13","modified_gmt":"2010-04-05T14:05:13","slug":"generic-business-faces-tougher-slog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/516437","title":{"rendered":"Generic Business Faces Tougher Slog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/s.wsj.net\/media\/placebo_art_257_20080304155738.jpg\" alt=\"pills\" align=\"right\"\/>These look to be good times for the generic drug makers. Copycat drugs accounted for 75% of the U.S. <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052702303395904575157752023093126-search.html\" >prescription drug volume<\/a> last year, up from 57% just five years ago, data tracker IMS Health reported just last week.<\/p>\n<p>All well and good, but even with billions in potential sales coming available as branded blockbusters <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/02\/05\/why-pharmas-patent-cliff-is-good-news-for-pharmacies\/\" >lose their patent protection<\/a>, makers of generics are likely to face a tougher road ahead on several fronts, the WSJ&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/article\/SB10001424052702303450704575159870545789454-search.html\" >Heard on the Street<\/a> column argues this morning. The key dangers cited in the column:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New upstarts are boosting generic competition. One analyst cites the case of Camber Pharmaceuticals&#8217; recently introduced generic version of the blood-pressure drug Norvasc. It took nine percentage points of market share over just a few months, largely at the expense of Mylan, itself a big generic manufacturer.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/health\/2010\/01\/06\/pfizer-like-much-of-big-pharma-pushes-further-into-generics\/\" >Branded giants<\/a> like Pfizer have gained experience with generics. Pfizer&#8217;s market share of its epilepsy drug Neurontin slipped to 10% when the compound went off patent in 2004, but has said that after it introduced a generic Neurontin, its share returned to 50% of U.S. prescriptions.<\/li>\n<li>Stepped-up product recalls make safety a greater concern. The big Indian generic maker Dr. Reddy&#8217;s has recently recalled batches of four different drugs and slowed overall production.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One positive for generic makers is that the new health legislation in the U.S. doesn&#8217;t seem to pose problems for them, the column says. A proposal to do away with so-called pay-for-delay deals &#8212; under which generic and branded makers reach deals that often slow the introduction of the copycat versions &#8212; didn&#8217;t make the final version of the overhaul bill.<\/p>\n<p>Image: iStockphoto<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/jvUMArll1KUoWjmZYDwkaFv_Ibk\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/jvUMArll1KUoWjmZYDwkaFv_Ibk\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/jvUMArll1KUoWjmZYDwkaFv_Ibk\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~at\/jvUMArll1KUoWjmZYDwkaFv_Ibk\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=GezPS1hgwi4:ITGBwWtRe0w:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=GezPS1hgwi4:ITGBwWtRe0w:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=GezPS1hgwi4:ITGBwWtRe0w:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=GezPS1hgwi4:ITGBwWtRe0w:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=GezPS1hgwi4:ITGBwWtRe0w:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=GezPS1hgwi4:ITGBwWtRe0w:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?i=GezPS1hgwi4:ITGBwWtRe0w:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?a=GezPS1hgwi4:ITGBwWtRe0w:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/wsj\/health\/feed?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/wsj\/health\/feed\/~4\/GezPS1hgwi4\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These look to be good times for the generic drug makers. Copycat drugs accounted for 75% of the U.S. prescription drug volume last year, up from 57% just five years ago, data tracker IMS Health reported just last week. All well and good, but even with billions in potential sales coming available as branded blockbusters [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":792,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-516437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516437","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\/792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}