Designer Drugs Turning Generic

[joyfool]

I’m not even sure I phrased that correctly or in a way anyone would understand (so, in other words, I sure as hell had zero chance of finding my way around Google about it), but what I’m looking for is some site that might tell you when a name-brand drug’s patent will expire and then be up for producing as generic.

Is there something like that? Or any place I can look?

Thanks.

[CynicalGabe]

Honestly, a chart like that would be useless because the companies keep lobbying successfully to have their patents extended.

[Cillasi]

http://www.fda.gov/cder/about/smallbiz/exclusivity.htm should answer your questions.

@faithfool

I’m not even sure I phrased that correctly or in a way anyone would understand (so, in other words, I sure as hell had zero chance of finding my way around Google about it), but what I’m looking for is some site that might tell you when a name-brand drug’s patent will expire and then be up for producing as generic.

Is there something like that? Or any place I can look?

Thanks.

[JillGat]

Is there a specific drug you’re curious about? You might ask your pharmacist, too. They know a lot about this kind of thing. By “designer,” you mean “brand name,” right?

[joyfool]

@JillGat

Is there a specific drug you’re curious about? You might ask your pharmacist, too. They know a lot about this kind of thing. By “designer,” you mean “brand name,” right?

Yes ma’am, I actually did mean brand name. And what I was after was the supposed date that Lamictal is supposed to do the flop to more affordable. Now, although my skills are way weak, I did find that it (will be? is?) call Lamotrigine. However, from what little I could understand, that looked even more expensive.

::: sigh :::

To Cillasi: I so appreciate the link. Now if someone less technologically-challenged could show me how to navigate it to find what I’m looking for, I’d be ever grateful.

(Yes, I can be veeeeeeeeeeeery dense. Sorry.)

Oh, and CynicalGabe, that’s a good point. Believe it or not, I think I knew that, but had been pinning my hopes on what my psychiatrist felt would be the case. Which is estimated at another couple of years.

Thanks everyone for all the help thus far.

[JillGat]

Generic lamotrigine is available in Canada. You can probably get it in Mexico too, if that’s closer to you. When drugs first go generic in the US, the price doesn’t always go down right away, because I believe another company has the exclusive rights to sell the generic for some period of time, and this is extremely profitable. I don’t know that drug companies lobby to extend patents, but they do tsometimes try to produce evidence that their brand name version is the only one effective for certain conditions.

[commasense]

@CynicalGabe

Honestly, a chart like that would be useless because the companies keep lobbying successfully to have their patents extended.

Tell that to Wall Street. From Bloomberg on Monday:

Merck lost $1.22, or 4.3 percent, to $29.65 for the worst performance in the Dow average. The world’s third-largest drugmaker said revenue next year will fall by $2 billion as the patent expires on its biggest-selling drug, Zocor. Merck also said it will eliminate 7,000 jobs and close five plants as part of a plan to recover from a three-year decline in earnings.