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Last week I talked about combination pills. But they aren’t the only drug company issue that irritates me.
Alphabet letters are cheap, except in pharmaceuticals. Here the most expensive combinations are XR, ER, CR, XL, SR, and a few others.
Most patients can remember to take their medications twice a day (three times a day, I admit, can be an issue). But that hasn’t stopped drug companies from trying to mine gold out of these letters.
Many drugs are twice-daily. And it’s almost a sure bet that when their patent life dwindles down to a few months, the parent company will introduce a once-daily variant with one of these letter combinations tacked on to the name. Of course, this involves a significant price-hike over the generic b.i.d. form.
Just like other "convenience pills," this quickly becomes a financial issue. I always have plenty of samples to give out, but sooner or later a real scrip has to be called in, and that’s when the guano hits the fan. The scrip gets rejected because the insurance company won’t pay for it, the patient is horrified by the cash price and won’t pay for it, and those little copay cards don’t help as much as the drug reps claim (they’re also, in my experience, thoroughly hated by pharmacists).
As with combo pills that I’ve written about previously, QD dosing is nice, but not take-out-a-second-mortgage-to-pay-for-it nice. In these cases, the patient inevitably goes with the b.i.d. generic. The samples become a gateway to try the drug, but sooner or later the real scrip will be for the generic b.i.d. form.
I’m aware that these types of pills are easier to bring to market than an all-new agent. They get marketed with all sorts of hoopla as some sort of miracle breakthrough, but anyone on the prescribing side of the business can see that they’re just repackaging an older drug to squeeze a few more dollars out if it. And, as always, I find myself wondering if the fortune blown on bringing this to market couldn’t have been better spent on something truly new and useful.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology private practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Last week I talked about combination pills. But they aren’t the only drug company issue that irritates me.
Alphabet letters are cheap, except in pharmaceuticals. Here the most expensive combinations are XR, ER, CR, XL, SR, and a few others.
Most patients can remember to take their medications twice a day (three times a day, I admit, can be an issue). But that hasn’t stopped drug companies from trying to mine gold out of these letters.
Many drugs are twice-daily. And it’s almost a sure bet that when their patent life dwindles down to a few months, the parent company will introduce a once-daily variant with one of these letter combinations tacked on to the name. Of course, this involves a significant price-hike over the generic b.i.d. form.
Just like other "convenience pills," this quickly becomes a financial issue. I always have plenty of samples to give out, but sooner or later a real scrip has to be called in, and that’s when the guano hits the fan. The scrip gets rejected because the insurance company won’t pay for it, the patient is horrified by the cash price and won’t pay for it, and those little copay cards don’t help as much as the drug reps claim (they’re also, in my experience, thoroughly hated by pharmacists).
As with combo pills that I’ve written about previously, QD dosing is nice, but not take-out-a-second-mortgage-to-pay-for-it nice. In these cases, the patient inevitably goes with the b.i.d. generic. The samples become a gateway to try the drug, but sooner or later the real scrip will be for the generic b.i.d. form.
I’m aware that these types of pills are easier to bring to market than an all-new agent. They get marketed with all sorts of hoopla as some sort of miracle breakthrough, but anyone on the prescribing side of the business can see that they’re just repackaging an older drug to squeeze a few more dollars out if it. And, as always, I find myself wondering if the fortune blown on bringing this to market couldn’t have been better spent on something truly new and useful.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology private practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Last week I talked about combination pills. But they aren’t the only drug company issue that irritates me.
Alphabet letters are cheap, except in pharmaceuticals. Here the most expensive combinations are XR, ER, CR, XL, SR, and a few others.
Most patients can remember to take their medications twice a day (three times a day, I admit, can be an issue). But that hasn’t stopped drug companies from trying to mine gold out of these letters.
Many drugs are twice-daily. And it’s almost a sure bet that when their patent life dwindles down to a few months, the parent company will introduce a once-daily variant with one of these letter combinations tacked on to the name. Of course, this involves a significant price-hike over the generic b.i.d. form.
Just like other "convenience pills," this quickly becomes a financial issue. I always have plenty of samples to give out, but sooner or later a real scrip has to be called in, and that’s when the guano hits the fan. The scrip gets rejected because the insurance company won’t pay for it, the patient is horrified by the cash price and won’t pay for it, and those little copay cards don’t help as much as the drug reps claim (they’re also, in my experience, thoroughly hated by pharmacists).
As with combo pills that I’ve written about previously, QD dosing is nice, but not take-out-a-second-mortgage-to-pay-for-it nice. In these cases, the patient inevitably goes with the b.i.d. generic. The samples become a gateway to try the drug, but sooner or later the real scrip will be for the generic b.i.d. form.
I’m aware that these types of pills are easier to bring to market than an all-new agent. They get marketed with all sorts of hoopla as some sort of miracle breakthrough, but anyone on the prescribing side of the business can see that they’re just repackaging an older drug to squeeze a few more dollars out if it. And, as always, I find myself wondering if the fortune blown on bringing this to market couldn’t have been better spent on something truly new and useful.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology private practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.
