Lowering prescription drug prices is complicated. Just look at insulin.

[TexasTowelie]

WASHINGTON — The price of a life-saving drug used by some 30 million Americans — including 1.3 million in Pennsylvania — has nearly tripled since 2002. Average medication costs for the most vulnerable have risen by 600% over the last two decades.

It sounds like a setup for a bipartisan fix in a polarized Washington. Indeed, as Congress has recently advanced broad proposals to lower the cost of prescription drugs, Pennsylvania lawmakers have singled out the soaring cost of insulin, used by diabetics to regulate blood sugar.

But just as those drug pricing overhauls have hit political snags, insulin measures are ensnared in a tangle of bureaucracy, business and pharmaceutical science.

A bill introduced in September by Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, provides a good example. The Market Access for Generic Insulin Competition Act, or MAGIC Act, would help pave the way for a generic form of insulin. Generics are identical copies of drugs that are often sold much cheaper — roughly 50% to 80% cheaper, according to government data — than their brand-name counterparts.

Read more: https://www.post-gazette.com/business/healthcare-business/2019/10/06/Mike-Kelly-Conor-Lamb-generic-insulin-FDA-prescription-drug-prices/stories/201909180002

[tblue37]

1. Generics aren't identical copies. Apparently they only have to match 80%. nt

[mopinko]

2. we absolutely need patent reform.

i take an inhaled steroid for asthma. i recently tried to see if i could find a cheaper one. there are several on the market that are all the same price- $275/one month.

but the steroid that i use is the one in flonaze.
as a nasal spray, in a pump spray bottle, it is available as a generic for $20 for an even larger amount than that $275 spray can.

so many patents owned by the govt in the first place are being used to gouge people. the gov needs to contract directly w generic makers for meds for medicaid, medicare and the va.
that would bring them down for everyone.