Generic Proscar approved; Propecia loses patent protection today.
Teva has gotten its generic finasteride tablets approved by the FDA. They will begin shipping the new generic for Merck's Proscar immediately. They have a 6-month monopoly on the sale of the new generic, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear about them filing the ANDA for Propecia as well, assuming they haven't already. (Propecia is a low-dose finasteride (1mg) used to treat male pattern baldness that also lost patent protection today.)
The priority, of course, was Proscar since Proscar is a far larger market than the Propecia. Because Propecia is considered a lifestyle and/or cosmetic drug, most insurers won't cover it (even though it's not particularly expensive, all things considered), which isn't the case for the very popular Proscar, which enjoyed $400 million in sales in the US in 2004.
[tags]Medicine, pharmacy, finasteride, propecia, proscar, merck, teva, generic drugs, generics[/tags]
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