By inmedia
There has been a trend emerging in recent years of pharmaceutical companies creating generic versions of successful off-patent drugs as a method of speeding the laborious, expensive and time consuming clinical and regulatory requirements of bringing a drug to market. When generic drugs hit the market, typically between seven and 12 years after the brand name drug was made generally available and the 20-year patent protection has ended, the cost for both the generic and the brand name drug decrease because of the increased competition. However, the results of a study by Canada’s Competition Bureau show that Canadians could be paying less for these drugs than they currently are. The rebates that generic providers are giving to pharmacies as incentive to stock their products are not being passed along to the consumer. The full study, which explains why these benefits are not reaching the consumer and suggests possible solutions, is available on the Competition Bureau’s web site.
