Wall Street Journal Examines Research on Generic Treatments

The Wall Street Journal on May 17 reports on the lack of research on treatments that have lost patent protection, a trend that has contributed to increased prescription drug costs. Brand-name drug companies -- the "main financiers" of pharmaceutical research -- have "little incentive" to fund the studies on the effectiveness of generic treatments, which could lead to more competition for their products. According to the Journal, "far more expensive" brand-name treatments "draw the industry's heavy research and promotional money." Brand-name companies, which provide most of the information that doctors receive on new treatments, also have "no interest in dispatching" sales representatives to discuss "low-priced drugs with long-expired patents." The Journal cites the case of Dr. G. Umberto Meduri of the Health Science Center at the University of Tennessee. Meduri and colleagues in the United States and Europe have collected a "modest body of evidence" showing that patients can take "cheap, common steroids," which cost about $50 per dose, to treat sepsis, an infectious disease that kills about 215,000 people in the United States each year. Xigris, the only sepsis treatment approved by the FDA, costs about $7,000 per dose. Eli Lilly has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and promote Xigris, but the Journal reports that the "Meduri approach languishes, because no one has ever done the large-scale studies that most doctors need to be convinced" of the effectiveness of steroids in sepsis treatment (Burton, Wall Street Journal, 5/17). A related NPR "Morning Edition" report on increased prescription drug costs is available online. Note: You must have RealPlayer to listen to the report.