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US challenges 'bogus' patents on Ozempic and other drugs in effort to spur competition
(www.seattletimes.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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I've been buying my inhalers from someone I met on reddit who happened to live an hour away from me. She has extras because - despite trying to change it - Medicaid keeps sending her twice as many as she needs.
$50 each. Otherwise I'd be paying $368...and that's with insurance.
Fuck these companies. The only difference between these expensive inhalers and the old version ($40 with insurance) is wheel that rotates the numbers but their patent probably expired so they "updated" it
But why isn't another brand available that makes the old one? Why doesn't USA have parallel imports which AFAIK is common most places?
Seem to me the US system is rotten on multiple levels.
I haven't looked into it since I got my black market inhalers lookup but if I'm remembering correctly, another company IS making a generic version the old version......it's just not fuckin covered by insurance.
I looked at all the cheap online pharmacies (goodrx, those Indian sites) and it still wasn't affordable
Ah yes, privatized healthcare...
I really feel sorry for those Americans that actually voted to change that and never got it.
After two decades of complaining my conservative parents are starting to feel it. They've gone their whole lives without any health concerns until recently. All I can say is....you see our healthcare system suck ass now, right?
Problem is that from what I hear, conservatives tend to blame the liberals for it, because free market fixes everything if only those pesky regulations wouldn't stand in the way.
They literally believe the water would be cleaner without regulation to prevent pollution and keep it clean. It's next level indoctrination for decades.
Free market brought us Uber and Lyft! Amazing! But then it also brought us present day Uber and Lyft. Absolute shit.
There might be, but the doctor is prescribing the new one and the old is not substituteable. there may or may not be other differences between the old and new that matter (I don't know about this case, but in some there are and some there are not) Doctors never prescribe A or B - it is always A and if you want B that needs a new prescription. The doctor needs to know what you have as if there is an allergy or other problem they need to deal with it (if you always get B it may be A doesn't work for you and we don't know as you never tried. Or it may be that either would work but you go through withdrawal if you switch)
Seems what you are describing is 2 different kinds of medicine and not this:
If 2 medicines have identical active component they are considered compatible here, and the phamacist may give you whichever you prefer. You are always offered the cheapest one. This ought to be the same in USA, anything else is borderline criminal. If the doctor insists on a specific brand, he can make a note of that on the prescription, and you will get that, but that is extremely rare.
I agree what you describe is a real problem too, personally I was once prescribed Cipralex instead of Cipramil, those 2 are near identical.
Cipramil is the new version that the company say "may" have lower risk of side effects, but AFAIK the 2 have identical efficacy and similar side effects. Or at least a research paper made in UK claimed that. Difference is the old one is no longer under patent protection, and a parallel import copy product cost only a tenth what the original and the new one cost. So I asked for the old one out of principle, and got the cheap copy. Despite I don't really pay much extra for the expensive one, because we are compensated more for more expensive medicine.
This is possible with a wide range of medicine, and should be utilized more to keep cost down, when there is no proven benefit of the newer more expensive medicine.
The wheel that rotates is a difference though, and so you can't just substitute as the user may need that wheel for something.