Generic Drugs

This week’s News on China video, presented by Tings Chak. • US calls China “aggressive” • Suez Canal investments • Multinational pharmaceuticals in China • History of bicycles in China

The law applies to generic or off-patent drug makers that manufacture a medicine at least three other firms also make.
BALTIMORE — A trade group for generic drugmakers brought a federal complaint Thursday to block Maryland’s attempt of a crackdown on pharmaceutical price gouging.

The Amgen headquarters in Thousand Oaks, Calif. (AP/Mark J. Terrill)
The Supreme Court dealt a blow to big pharma on Monday, ruling that companies making generic “biosimilars” to brand-name drugs don’t have to wait an extra six months after gaining federal approval before selling their drugs.
The ruling, written by Justice Clarence Thomas for the unanimous court, is expected to speed up how quickly generic drugs become available to consumers.

On May 18, the California Senate passed a bill that would ban pharmaceutical companies from giving gifts to doctors. The Senate voted 23-13 in favor of sending the bill to the Assembly. [1]
For the bill, SB 790, California lawmakers used a similar 2009 Vermont law enacted in 2009 as a template.

A microbiologist works with tubes of bacteria samples in an antimicrobial resistance and characterization lab within the Infectious Disease Laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. (AP/David Goldman)
Industrial pollution from Indian pharmaceutical companies making medicines for nearly all the world’s major drug companies is fuelling the creation of deadly superbugs, suggests new research. Global health authorities have no regulations in place to stop this happening.

Doctors at teaching hospitals are more likely to prescribe generic drugs over name-brand ones when pharmaceutical sales representatives are kept at bay, a study published in JAMA shows. [1]
By comparison, doctors working in hospitals that don’t keep pharma sales reps on a short leash – freely accepting meals and gifts, and letting reps have free reign of the hospital – prescribed far more name-brand medications.