Drug Deals – Nexium and Teva Purple Pill Agreement, And What Is This Costing Us?

The cost of the purple pill is enough to give one heartburn. Consumer reports is trying to help you out with some affordable over the counter alternatives. Astra Zeneca already cut a deal with Ranbaxy to delay it’s release of a generic version of the drug. Who’s on the list for the next deal I wonder? The drug is the biggest seller for Astra Zeneca too, and we have all seen the massive TV commercial media on how it is effective, there’s been a ton of marketing done here to equate everyone with “the purple pill”. Interesting too in this survey that Nexium made the list of 8 drugs doctors wouldn’t take themselves…hmmmmm.

8 drugs doctors wouldn't take

Teva made an agreement here to pay off Astra Zeneca so they could continue to market a generic version of Prilosec, but on the Purple Pill issue they will have to hold off until 2014. Teva if you have not kept up is a generic drug company from Israel that has been very aggressive in promoting and getting cheaper generic drugs to the market place.

Generic Prevacid SoluTab Is Here – Teva Wins Court Battle on Patent Challenge For Heartburn Drug

The latest report shows that only 22% of the drugs being prescribed in the US are generic, think some of these drug deals might have some influence here? This is part of what healthcare reform is trying to eliminate enough to where this is a potential anti-trust issue for the FTC. You know I could care less if I see any more drug ads on television as I know they are part of the area that continues to increase the price of what we pay in the US for our medications. The drug companies could save a ton if they relied on the internet and save us from all the suggestive commercial we see all the time. They are all just about sounding the same these days. BD

Generic Drug Deals – One More Area Being Explored to Help Reduce Cost of Healthcare by the FTC

The heartburn drug Nexium is one of the most expensive of its kind, and that’s just the way the manufacturer, AstraZeneca, wants to keep it. The company said Thursday it inked a deal with Teva shielding the lucrative esomeprazole (Nexium) from generic competition until 2014. Nexium falls into a class of drugs called proton pump inhibitors that are used to treat severe heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD.

Generic drugs cost significantly less and save consumers billions of dollars per year, but they can’t be sold until the patent expires on the brand-name drug, usually some 10 to 14 years after they first hit the market. And brand-name manufacturers may try to delay a generic drug’s availability even longer by making deals with generic companies, basically by paying them to not manufacture the drug. Clearly, both drug manufacturers benefit from these arrangements, but it’s consumers who lose out.

Consumer Reports Health Blog: Deal over heartburn drug is enough to give you, well, heartburn