The FTC won't give up in its battle to stop pay-for-delay deals despite set backs in court and legislative inaction. It still continues to bang the drum to get Congress to prohibit or curtail these deals.
FTC Complains Pay-To-Delay Deals ‘Skyrocketed’ // Pharmalot.
FTC Chairman, Jon Leibowitz released another report that indicates these deals rose by 63% in number in 2010 over 2009 -- at total of 31 deals in 2010. These involved 22 brand named drugs with annual US sales of about $9.3 billion. Leibowitz claims these type of "collusive" deals cost the US taxpayers $3.5 billion annually in higher prices.
The amount of savings differs rather dramatically from White House estimates of $540 million in 2012, rising to approximately $8.8 billion in 2021 should new legislation being proposed now go through. Of course, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association counters that these deals are not collusive and never have prevented competition beyond the original patent expiry of a drug.
Now we wait to see if anything will happen -- besides using calculators to tell us what we might save.
Posted by Bruce Lehr May 5th 2011.
More on this from InPharma.com
http://www.inpharm.com/news/155784/ftc-pharma-pay-for-delay-deals-increase
Posted by: bigredbruce | 05/08/2011 at 10:24 PM