Bills would ban drugmaker deals to delay cheap drugs

Generic-drug makers in the past year have dropped a record number of patent lawsuits against brand-name pharmaceutical companies in exchange for compensation to delay getting money-saving drugs to market.
Legislation that has recently gained momentum in Congress threatens to end such deals.
The House has passed a bill limiting [...]

CMS Lets Drug Makers Access More Data Under Final Coverage Gap Discount Agreement

CMS responded to drug makers comments about the Coverage Gap Discount Program manufacturer agreement in an Aug. 3, 2010 memo, obtained by Inside Health Policy, and will allow drug makers greater access to prescription drug data, but not to the extent industry had asked for. CMS also said in the document that the sole exception [...]

5 Generic Products That Are Just as Good

In today’s tough economy, consumers are pinching pennies by choosing generic over big name brands in their supermarket aisles. From chips and dips to pain relievers and peanut butter, there’s a cheaper generic version of almost every product.
Of course, some of these no-name products are second-rate. For [...]

Controversial ‘Pay For Delay’ Provision Attached To Financial Services Bill

Controversial legislation that would limit brand-name and generic drug makers from reaching deals to delay generic drug marketing was attached to a Senate appropriations subcommittee’s financial services spending bill on Tuesday, sources say. The measure has been briefly attached to several other bills over the past year, including health reform legislation, only to be dropped [...]

US sees jump in “pay-for-delay” drug settlements

Brand-name drug companies made a record 21 deals so far this fiscal year with generic firms that delayed production of cheaper generic drugs, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission told lawmakers on Tuesday.
The FTC is trying to crack down on so-called “pay-for-delay” settlements, highlighting that when generic versions [...]

GPhA Report: Generics Offer Big Medicaid Savings Opportunity

Every 2% uptick in the substitution of generic drugs for brand-name products saves Medicaid $1 billion a year, according to a report released by the Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA). And, the group says, the generic utilization rate is about 64% across Medicaid, more than 10 percentage points lower than for the general population — suggesting [...]

Pay-for-delay, evergreening central to GPhA cost-savings report

The Generic Pharmaceutical Association is touting a new report that highlights cost savings associated with generic drugs as additional fodder to fight congressional efforts to limit pharmaceutical manufacturer settlements, while simultaneously calling for the elimination of “evergreening” practices for biologic products — two issues that were central in the healthcare reform debate.
In its report, GPhA [...]

New Medicare Rules May Curb Use of Anemia Drugs for Dialysis

Yet more restrictions in the use of anemia drugs are on the way.
Medicare issued final rules Monday that are expected to sharply curtail the use of anemia drugs, particularly Amgen’s Epogen, in the treatment of patients undergoing kidney dialysis.
However, after getting lots of protest, Medicare decided to exempt certain [...]

ESRD Rule Delays Bundling Oral Drugs; Keeps 5% Cut To Dialysis Centers

In a win for drug makers, CMS is waiting three years to bundle reimbursement of oral treatments for end stage renal disease that have have no injectible equivalents. Biopharmaceutical companies Amgen and Genzyme had lobbied for a delay, using a health reform law provision to bolster their argument. Big dialysis companies did not fair as [...]