Nursefriendly.com: Generic Prescription Drugs

Showing posts with label Generic Prescription Drugs. Show all posts

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Asthma Pill As Effective As Inhalers And Easier To Use

Leukotriene receptor antagonist (LTRA) pills are just as effective as inhalers in managing asthma symptoms, and are much easier to use, researchers from the University of East Anglia, England reported in NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine).
LTRAs are infrequently prescribed as an alternative to inhalers because some people believed them to be less effective. This latest study shows they are effective.
Examples of LTRAs include Singulair (montelukast) and Accolate (zafirlukast). In the United Kingdom guidelines recommend LTRAs as a third step in asthma management.
Prof David Price and team monitored 650 asthma patients for 24 months. There was clear evidence that LTRAs are not only just as effective as inhalers, they are also much more user-friendly.

via medicalnewstoday.com

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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Drugs: Spending on prescriptions is slowing - Health Key

mericans consume a lot of prescription drugs. And they seem especially fond of those to lower their cholesterol, relieve their heartburn, cheer them up and take away pain. Overall, however, their spending on such drugs is slowing.
A new report from consulting firm IMS Health offers a quick, but thorough, look at Americans' consumption of, and spending on, prescription drugs. In 2010, the report says, we spent more than $307 billion on medication. That’s up over 2009, but only by 2.3%.
The report’s introduction frames the trend nicely: “A number of factors contributed to this comparatively and historically low growth, including fewer patient visits to doctors’ offices, patent expirations for branded products, expanded usage of existing generic products and less spending on new products.”
Now, drum roll, please...Here are the top five classes of drugs prescribed in America:

via healthkey.com

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

AIM: Adverse event reporting is on the rise

Although the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) database has been in existence since 1969, more than half of the incidents in it were received in the past decade, according to an article published online March 28 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
These 2.2 million events represent a 1.65-fold increase from the prior decade, wrote Sheila Weiss-Smith, PhD, from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore, and colleagues. "Report volume increased from 2000 to 2010 at a mean annual rate of 11.3 percent,” the authors continued.
AERS is a repository of passively reported adverse drug events designed as a safety net so the FDA can monitor all marketed drugs and detect serious safety problems. Weiss-Smith and colleagues sought to characterize the current reporting patterns.

via cmio.net

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Drug Shortages Distress Hospitals - WSJ.com

A shortage of injectable generic drugs for cancer and other serious diseases is putting pressure on hospitals, which are sometimes having to scramble to locate the medicines or search for alternative treatments.

The supply of these drugs has tightened in recent years as the generic-drug industry has consolidated, with many of the drugs now made by just one or two companies. In many cases patents have long expired and the original brand-name drug is no longer being produced.

Federal regulators have also stepped up enforcement of quality standards, limiting the ability of large manufacturers to ramp up production.

The drugs—typically used in hospitals and outpatient clinics—often require complex manufacturing processes with long lead times. Because factories produce many kinds of medicines, companies say they can't easily make more of one without creating a shortage in another.

via online.wsj.com

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Saturday, March 26, 2011

'Dispense As Written' Prescriptions May Add $7.7 Billion To Annual Health Care Costs, Researchers Found

About 5% of prescriptions submitted by CVS Caremark Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) members in a 30-day period during 2009 included a "dispense as written" (DAW) designation.
This practice - whereby doctors or patients demand the dispensing of a specific brand-name drug and not a generic alternative - costs the health care system up to $7.7 billion annually, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard University, Brigham and Women's Hospital and CVS Caremark. Moreover, these requests reduce the likelihood that patients actually fill new prescriptions for essential chronic conditions.
In a study published this week in the American Journal of Medicine, the researchers demonstrate that DAW designations for prescriptions have important implications for medication adherence. They found that when starting new essential therapy, chronically ill patients with DAW prescriptions were 50 to 60 percent less likely to actually fill the more expensive brand name prescriptions than generics. "Although dispense as written requests would seem to reflect a conscious decision by patients or their physicians to use a specific agent, the increased cost sharing that results for the patient may decrease the likelihood that patients actually fill their prescriptions," the researchers said.

via medicalnewstoday.com

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Thursday, March 24, 2011

Branded drug prices soar as generic pressure rises | Reuters

Pharmacists in Jordan-based Hikma Pharmaceuticals package generic versions of Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride 750 mg which will be exported to the U.S. and Western markets in Amman February 8, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Ali Jarekji

By Deena Beasley

LOS ANGELES | Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:46am EDT

LOS ANGELES
(Reuters) - U.S. prices for brand-name drugs are rising faster than ever as patents expire on top-selling medicines and the pharmaceutical industry nervously eyes the future of healthcare reform.
Prices for the 15 best-selling drugs rose by much higher rates in 2010 than they did in each of the last five years, according to exclusive data from Thomson Reuters MarketScan, which measured the average cost of a daily dose as shown in medical claims data.
Two thirds of the drugs saw double-digit price hikes, well above inflation of 1.6 percent in 2010 measured by the consumer price index. The analysis indicates drug makers are scrambling to make as much money as possible from blockbuster drugs before their patents expire, while taking advantage of the fact that last year's healthcare reform bill did not cap drug prices.
According to MarketScan, payments for Pfizer Inc's Lipitor rose 11.4 percent last year, compared with 5 percent annually from 2005 to 2010. That meant the cost of a daily dose of the cholesterol drug rose from $3.17 at the end of 2009 to $3.53 at the end of 2010. Lipitor, which will soon lose patent protection, had 2010 global sales of $10.7 billion.

via reuters.com

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Tuesday, March 15, 2011

$4 drug programs could save economy billions: study | Reuters

U.S. consumers could save billions of dollars by filling prescriptions for inexpensive generic drugs at stores such as Wal-Mart and Target, according to a new report.

A growing number of national chain pharmacies offer the generic form of a range of drugs - including anti-allergy medications, antidepressants, antibiotics and cholesterol-lowering drugs - for $4 for a 30 day supply. However, researchers found that less than 6 percent of people who could use such a program take advantage of it - costing both consumers and the government extra bucks.
All told, the US could save as much as $5.8 billion, according to the study

via reuters.com

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Thursday, May 5, 2011

Asthma Pill As Effective As Inhalers And Easier To Use

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Drugs: Spending on prescriptions is slowing - Health Key

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

AIM: Adverse event reporting is on the rise

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Drug Shortages Distress Hospitals - WSJ.com

Saturday, March 26, 2011

'Dispense As Written' Prescriptions May Add $7.7 Billion To Annual Health Care Costs, Researchers Found

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Branded drug prices soar as generic pressure rises | Reuters

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

$4 drug programs could save economy billions: study | Reuters

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