Re: Liberal-hunting bumper sticker

Danny Low <danny.low@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> archmage@xxxxxxxxxx (Nate Edel) wrote:
> >that goes out of patent much sooner... or are on entirely follow on
> >classes of drugs (ARBs after ACE Inhibitors, PPIs after H2 blockers,
> >etc). Yes, they have to work somewhat better to get approved... but it
> >rarely seems to be 10-20x better to justify the price increase, and for
> >some people, the older ones work better or equally well.
>
> This is basic business sense. You get as much mileage out of your
> existing products as possible. It does not change the fact that the
> new variant gets its own patent and retains the legal monopoly that
> the company uses to do monopoly pricing.

The new one, however, is a new product, and hardly invalidates the old one.
The new one has to compete on the market with the old one, at a time when
the old one will shortly be decreasing in price significantly because of the
generic competitors.

> >Dates for Zantac were harder to track down, but it *appears* that Zantac
> >in the 75mg dosage became available OTC in 1995, more than a year *ahead*
> >of its patent expiration.
>
> If this is true, then making a drug OTC does an even better job of
> lowering prices than I originally thought.

To an extent; from what I've seen with Claritin, the name-brand heavily
marketed OTC versions (and the heavily-marketed "generic" Alavert) are
nearly as expensive as the original name-brand prescription version.

Cheaper generic OTC loratidine was rather tricky to find for a while;
although a cheaper generic showed up almost immediately at the Kaiser
in-house pharmacy, it took a while longer time before I started seeing it
semi-regularly at commercial pharmacies.

> >The price on generic prescription drugs is highly variable, as well: as
> >an example, take a look at generic 10mg lisinopril on drugstore.com
> >(about $53 for 100) vs. costco.com (about $13 for 100) vs. the Kaiser
> >in-house pharmacy here in SF (about $16 for 100 if you don't have drug
> >coverage.)
>
> You see the same variation in other products in a free market. Jeans
> go for $12 at WalMart and $60 at Macy's. If someone wants to pay $53
> at drugstore.com they are free to do so just as people are free to pay
> $60 for jeans at Macy's that probably came from the same factory in
> China as the WalMart jeans.
>
> A free market gives you the freedom to be a stupid consumer as well as
> to be smart consumer.

That's true. Whether that's a good thing, in the case of drugs, is another
question.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/

"I do have a cause, though. It is Obscenity. I'm for it." - Tom Lehrer
.

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