generic drugs

See the following -

Brand-Name Drugs Pushing Up US Medicare Costs: Survey

Lynne Taylor | PharmaTimes | June 12, 2013

People with diabetes who are enrolled in the US federal Medicare health programme are two to three times more likely to use "expensive" brand-name drugs than diabetes patients who are treated within the Veterans Administration (VA) Healthcare System, new research shows. Read More »

Don't Trade Away Our Health

Joseph E. Stiglitz | The New York Times | January 30, 2015

A secretive group met behind closed doors in New York this week. What they decided may lead to higher drug prices for you and hundreds of millions around the world...

Read More »

Free Drug Samples Prompt Skin Doctors To Prescribe Costlier Meds

Michaeleen Doucleff | Natinoal Public Radio | April 16, 2014

Dermatologists who accept free tubes and bottles of brand-name drugs are likelier to prescribe expensive medications for acne than doctors who are prohibited from taking samples, a study reports Wednesday.  The difference isn't chump change.

Read More »

Free Drugs? India Mulls a New Assault on Big Pharma

Jason Overdorf | GlobalPost | June 25, 2012

...now it seems India is considering offering generic drugs for free to patients at government-run clinics. After Prime Minister Manmohan Singh backed the scheme, the Planning Commission has reportedly allocated $18 million to start the ball rolling.

Read More »

Generic Drugs Don't Necessarily Mean Low Prices

Megan Thompson | PBS Newshour | November 2, 2013

NewsHour Weekend's Megan Thompson reports on the surprising disparity in pricing for generic drugs. Generics, generally thought to be cheap, can actually vary widely in price from pharmacy to pharmacy, causing some to skip medications altogether. Read More »

Medicare Prescribes More Brand Name Drugs Than VA

Genevra Pittman | Reuters | June 10, 2013

Medicare Part D beneficiaries are two to three times more likely than those covered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to be prescribed brand name diabetes drugs rather than generics, a new study suggests. Read More »

Merck 'Evergreens' Off-Patent Lipitor By Creating Combination Drug With No Additional Benefit

Glyn Moody | Techdirt | July 8, 2013

Big pharma often gets a rather rough ride here on Techdirt, what with its attempts to stop governments granting licenses for life-saving and low-cost generics in emerging countries, engaging in legal action to prevent drug safety information being released, and paying kickbacks to doctors. Read More »

New Drugs Trail Many Old Ones In Effectiveness Against Disease

Sharon Begley | Reuters | June 3, 2013

Despite the more than $50 billion that U.S. pharmaceutical companies have spent every year since the mid-2000s to discover new medications, drugmakers have barely improved on old standbys developed decades ago. Read More »

NY Attorney General Confirms Real-Life Conspiracy Among Drug Companies

J.D. Heyes | Natural News | February 21, 2014

The office of the New York Attorney General and the American units of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. have come to terms on a settlement involving claims that an agreement between the two Big Pharma companies restricted competition unlawfully. Read More »

Pharmaceutical CEO Says His Cancer-Fighting Drugs Aren't For Poor People

Vivian Giang | PolicyMic | January 27, 2014

Big pharmaceutical companies constantly compete with one another to come up with the next "superstar" life-saving drug. But when the cure becomes a means of making money rather than a way to save lives, maybe they should refocus their mission statements.

Read More »

Soaring Generic Drug Prices Draw Senate Scrutiny

Matthew Perrone | ABC News | November 20, 2014

Some low-cost generic drugs that have helped restrain health care costs for decades are seeing unexpected price spikes of up to 8,000 percent, prompting a backlash from patients, pharmacists and now Washington lawmakers...

Read More »

Study: Brand Name Drugs Drive Up Medicare Spending

Ankita Rao | The Washington Post | June 11, 2013

A new study suggests that cash-strapped Medicare missed an opportunity to save more than $1 billion by not addressing the varying costs and use of prescription drugs. Read More »

Top Medicare Prescribers Rake In Speaking Fees From Drugmakers

Charles Ornstein, Tracy Weber, and Jennifer LaFleur | ProPublica | June 25, 2013

When the blood pressure drug Bystolic hit the market in 2008, it faced a crowded field of cheap generics. So its maker, Forest Laboratories, launched a promotional assault [...]. It flooded the offices of health professionals with drug reps, and it hired doctors to persuade their peers to choose Bystolic — even though the drug hadn't proved more effective than competitors. Read More »

TPP Treaty Could be a Serious Threat to US Public Health System

While trade agreements may seem to be another, albeit international species of wonkery, these agreements could have major effects on patients' and the public's health.  Since these concerns have been essentially ignored by the US medical and health care literature, (although they have appeared in UK journals, Australian, and New Zealand journals in English), they I will discuss them below. Worthy of further discussion is the possibility that these potential threats to health care and public health may arise not just from ideological disagreements, but also from health care corporations' increasing capture of government, facilitated by the conflicts of interest generated by the revolving door. Read More »