This has been a large lobbying act by drug and device manufacturers not to lose sales to some degree. Sure there are generics that work as well as name brand drugs and we seem to have plenty, but when it comes to specific new cancer drugs, well those generics of course are not there yet.
Some major pharma companies make their own generics that compete with their name brands, I guess this helps with capturing more market share overall. The statement below was from a study on cardiology drugs, but again the diagnosis, treatment and drug availability all enter in to the picture for each person individually. I would guess if everyone was taking generics, that wouldn’t leave much room for name brand drugs, so after the patent expires, it would appear it becomes a very generic world after all. Again, that is talking generali
ties and not specifics.
“They were found to be no better than generics by a review of the available medical evidence published in the December 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, the studies lead author said.”
The fear is that some drugs could be put out of reach for patients, but that is already going on big time and when there is no generic, well that is another decision of another type at that point and what is most critical, especially with cancer drugs with new markers and proteins being found and identified almost daily, the development and research changes at right about the same pace, and the cost at that end probably won’t be decreasing for quite a while. In the meantime, will insurance pay for these treatments, that is the catch 22. It’s not necessarily about the more common name/generic drugs on the market. BD
For people stricken with cancer, having health insurance is no guarantee they will be able to afford the care they need. That sobering fact is illustrated in a new report with the stories of real people suffering needlessly in their time of crisis. As if fighting the disease were not difficult enough, cancer patients too often have to fight our dysfunctional health care system as well.
The report, Spending to Survive: Cancer Patients Confront the Health Insurance System (PDF), was produced by the American Cancer Society and the Kaiser Family Foundation. It tells the stories of hardship faced by 20 cancer patients and survivors while navigating the bewildering world of health insurance and cancer treatment. According to the report, the stories featured in it "are among the more than 20,000 people who have called the American Cancer Society Health Insurance Assistance Service because they are having trouble finding adequate and affordable health insurance or are struggling to pay for health care despite being insured."
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