Teva's generic Zocor gets the OK, Dr Reddy launches "authorized" simvastatin
Looks like the misguided efforts of Sandoz/Novartis to block the new generic version of Zocor failed, and Teva's shipments of the new drug have already begun. I have to confess an odd sort of geeky excitement going into work this morning. I was expecting to see generic simvastatin on the shelves. Alas, I was disappointed. (I hadn't been following the lawsuits that diligently.) Simvastatin hasn't been added to our database yet, either. (Not a surprise.) I expect to see a large shipment of simvastatin on Monday morning, though.
I am hoping that we go right for the Dr Reddy's "authorized" version. It's just that much easier to convince the fence-sitters to switch to the generic when the new tablets look identical to the old ones.
Speaking of new generics… we are now stocking generic Proscar (finasteride), made by Teva, if memory serves. We are not carrying the 1mg version (marketed as Propecia). Neither of which is a surprise. I wouldn't be surprised to see a generic Propecia within a week or so, though. It's just not as lucrative as Proscar.
Mixing good business with good medicine to save money and improve quality of life
One of the many reasons I like the largely private healthcare system in the US (despite its many faults) is ennumerated in yesterday's WSJ. It's about the Medicaid system in New York and Mt Sinai Hospital, and how they combined good business with positive therapeutic outcomes.
Basically, the article outlines how Mt. Sinai was losing money hand over fist for years because of the established destructive negative feedback loop wherein Medicaid patients would end up being hospitalized repeatedly — a money-losing event due to low Medicaid reimbursement rates — because it was prohibitively expensive for Mt. Sinai to deal in preventative medicine for low-income Medicaid patients.
By combining higher reimbursement rates coupled to preventative medicine, this has allowed the State of New York to reduce its medicaid expenditures (by decreasing the amount of Medicaid hospitalizations) while improving the quality of life in the poor neighborhoods surrounding Mt. Sinai Hospital through outreach and education programs. Good medicine and good business. It would be great to see more coupling of business and medicine to achieve these ends.
While the changes deal with government-subsidized medicine, and therefore isn't a function of a privatized healthcare system, the changes are capitalistic at heart. In fact, they resemble many of the reforms that Rudy Giuliani instituted during his term as Mayor of NYC. I like to see government thinking like a lean private corporation rather than a bloated bureaucratic whale. This old-school Republican way of thinking about things has been unfortunately phased out of the current GOP's modus operandi in favor of the expensive and pointless trampling of personal freedom, "anti-terror," and "homeland security."
[tags]Medicine, New York, medicaid, business, healthcare, politics[/tags]
Streamlining drug approval
Two of the guys from Drugwonks have written an interesting article in the Washington Times about the Critical Path Initiative that they talk about quite often. I don't take issue with anything specifically in the article, because it's a topic I know next to nothing about. (Though I'm thinking I should learn more…)
It's simply not true that more studies make safer medicines. Over the past 40 years, the percent of medicines withdrawn from the market because of dangerous side effects has been essentially constant at about 2 or 3 percent, even as the number of required clinical studies — a current average of 120 per drug approval — has mushroomed.
The article only take about 5 minutes to read, and it's quite thought-provoking.
Via Drugwonks.
Freeware medical dictionary for Word: 66,000 words and counting
About a year or so ago I got annoyed with all of the little red squiggly underlines that appeared in documents that dealt with medicine. I also got tired of hitting "Add to dictionary" every 3 seconds. So I decided to create my own custom dictionary and make it available as freeware to everyone. The first version had some 40,000 or so words. Not a bad start, but it still wasn't good enough, so I've been working at it slowly and now my dictionary has some 66,239 words.
Since most of my readers work in the medical profession, I thought I would post it here. Anyway, feel free to pass it around to friends, relatives, medical students, pharmacy students, people you hate, you know, whatever.
I hope to include a form for submitting new words in the future.
MeDic for Word (and any other program that uses plain text dictionaries).
Cheers!
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, biology, chemistry, spelling, transcription, stenography, dictionary, grammar, word, microsoft word, hacks, freeware[/tags]
Avastin granted another license by the FDA
Genentech can do no wrong, these days. I've written extensively about Avastin in the past, and now they've been granted another license by the FDA today (and I'm starting to feel like a broken record):
The study showed that patients who received Avastin plus the 5-FU-based chemotherapy regimen known as FOLFOX4 (oxaliplatin/5-FU/leucovorin) had a 25 percent reduction in the risk of death (based on a hazard ratio of 0.75), the primary endpoint, which is equivalent to a 33 percent improvement in overall survival, compared to patients who received FOLFOX4 alone. Median survival for patients receiving Avastin plus FOLFOX4 was 13.0 months, compared to 10.8 months for those receiving FOLFOX4 alone.
Now we'll have to wait and see if the FDA approves Avastin for use in conjunction with taxane chemotherapy for treating colorectal cancer, as well.
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, cancer, oncology, genentech, avastin, bevacizumab, colorectal cancer, chemotherapy[/tags]
How UnitedHealth capitalized on Medicare "choice paralysis"
Back in October I knew UnitedHealth would take the lead in signing up Part D subscribers. Why? Because they made it so darn easy by leveraging a relationship with AARP, and making it as simple as filling out a one-page form. People don't like choice. Rather, they do, but are unable to effectively evaluate their options to make the best decision, particularly when it comes to complex decisions like health insurance. This trait is particularly exacerbated in seniors (as a rule). "Choice paralysis," as it were.
AARP, of course, knows this because of their experience dealing with the senior population of the United States, and they were able to work with UNH to effectively streamline and simplify the Medicare experience. Nice job, guys. You hit a homerun with this one.
Of the 4.5 million, 3.2 are in UnitedHealth's AARP-branded prescription drug plan. Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth is the nation's second-largest managed care company and has taken over the largest share of the more than 3,000 private health plans offered by about 90 companies throughout the country.
I don't know what UnitedHealth's numbers were before Part D, but I wouldn't be surprised if their success propelled them from #4 or 5 to the #2 spot. Anyone know?
Anticompetitive deals or just good business? Merck, Zocor, and monopolies
As regular readers know, I'm generally pro-business. This means that you won't find the bleeding-heart liberal attitudes that you'll find on many other blogs, particularly when discussing things like the government, Medicare, and Big Pharma. On this issue, though, I don't think there's any debate. In fact, I'm not sure why the following is even coming up as an issue…
New York Senator Charles Schumer (D), is charging that Merck is collaborating with health insurance companies to create lower copayments for customers buying Zocor instead of the generic equivalent.
*crickets*
I like Merck's response:
"It appears that Senator Schumer is criticizing us because he says that our prices are too low. That's a new one," said Ian Spatz, Merck's vice president for public policy.
"The truth is that we support generic competition and the generic competition for Zocor is good for patients. It's good for people who have to pay for medicine, which include health plans. We're going to continue to price it competitively," he said.
I don't think anyone can really fault Merck on this one. Competition is good in this case, and Merck wheeling-and-dealing with PBMs is nothing new. Backroom deals between PBMs and drugmakers are as old as the industry itself; it's one of the ways drug formularies are made. There's a problem here? Where?
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, Merck, Zocor, simvastatin, antitrust, competition, generic drugs, generics, drug pricing[/tags]