Perpetual Innovation

Category: drugs

  • Anti-Counterfeiting… Should be more than one day of the year…

    Here is an article from the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)    June 5 is World Anti-Counterfeiting Day   (http://www.ipi.org/policy_blog/detail/june-5-is-world-anti-counterfeiting-day)  It is a scary message counterfeiting of medications.  Note the opening sentence abut the deaths in 2012 from a false medication for malaria treatment.  Then, note that in some parts of the world about 1/3 of all medications are counterfeit.!

    As the author indicates, there seems to be no limit to what can be counterfeited from fake brake pads to fake batteries.  There are serious potential hazards and consequences in these forgeries — far worse than pirated CDs.

    Here in the US, counterfeiting takes a back seat to patent infringements and copyright theft.  At least, from a public awareness perspective that seems to be the case.  But, maybe that low cost product on eBay or Amazon is not licensed and is suspect.

    The old adage, if it looks too good to be true… it is too good to be true. Probably most of the books on Amazon and eBay are not legal. We have had experiences were our printed books were available for sale, but there were no physical copies of the book in distribution yet… Hmm…

    At least, when you buy the ebook on Amazon in Kindle format you know that it is a legal copy and the majority of the payment goes to the creator/author, not to the pirates.
    Minor edits: 12/17/2014

  • Pfizer says U.S. court invalidates Celebrex patent; generics loom — Reuters

    Pfizer — U.S. court invalidates Celebrex patent; generics loom | Reuters:

    Ouch!:-(

    Knocking the block of of the buster.

    Pfizer is taking a big hit with this court ruling against Celebrex patent. Surprisingly, the stock price, not so much so. Almost not even a jitter as it stays around $32 per share.

    That’s $3B in annual sales with $2B in the US (relevant to the US court ruling, obviously).

    IF the company repeats its $51B in sales from last year (revenues have been dropping over the last 3 years) then that represents about 4% to 6% of the companies sales. But it has to represent a huge hit to the bottom line, let’s say 8% to 15%. (It doesn’t take much to milk the cash cows; it does however, take a lot of money to invent the cow, clone it, raise the herd to maturity, and then milk each cow for all she’s got for about 20 years.)

    It look like the patent would have expired in 2015 anyway, so there would be generics already sitting on the sidelines (or the storefront in other countries).

    This must have been totally expected. It is hard to imaging a $204B company (based on market cap) that doesn’t take a serious tumble when one of its blockbuster products takes a hit.

    It is blockbuster patents in Big Pharma going off patent like this that contribute to the slowing of Healthcare spending. That’s right. Healthcare spending has only been increasing at about 4% over the last couple years. A big part of that is the patent cliff for big pharma drugs.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Oxycontin Expires today, April 16 2013. The “Patent Cliff” is not here on this one.

    » The “Patent Cliff” and its Effects upon Workers’ Compensation Claims:

    The Oxycontin patent expires today. 

    So you would expect to be able to buy many people’s favorite drug on the side of the road or on hill-tops, just above cliff level.

    As with many things that are FDA approved and regulated, this is going to be a very slow ride down from the cliff, definitely not a one-time drop off.

    First, this drug is highly abused and strongly regulated by the FDA. The FDA will have to approve any other generic drug… And the new (non-new) generic version will be regulated along with Oxycontin.

    The manufacturer, Purdue, is trying to get a 6 month extension on the patent, in part because of tamper-proof nature of the way they think the drug should be sold in the future.

    In short, the downward slope of the Oxycontin slope is not a cliff. It is not a Black Diamond. It is probably going to be more of a bunny slope… With not much competition and higher prices for several years.

    Of course, if you are buying it on the black market, you wouldn’t want a knock off, right?

    ‘via Blog this’