Actually, to call Deston Therapeutics Big Pharma would be insulting to the likes of Merck. It would be kinda stretching it to even call Deston Therapeutics Medium Pharma, but they have plans to change that. Big plans. If all goes well, loads of cash will soon be rolling in Deston Therapeutics' front door from sales of their new blockbuster product, Auralgan.
"Have you been taking the LSD again Drugmonkey?" I can hear you saying, "Auralgan has been around since Moses. No one's gonna make money off an old med that gets substituted nearly 100% of the time now. "
You'd be partly right. Auralgan has been around forever. For those of you not in the profession I'll tell you Auralgan is a pain relieving ear drop. The generic equivalents of Auralgan captured so much of the market that Wyeth, a real big pharma company, gave up making the brand name a few years ago. Most people didn't notice. Like I said, every prescription for Auralgan was getting filled with the generic anyway.
Most doctors are in the habit of writing the brand name on your prescription pad though. It's easier to write "Auralgan" than it is "antipyrine and benzocaine" That is the key to Deston Therapeutics plan to hit the big time.
Deston Therapeutics bought the name "Auralgan" from Wyeth, changed the formula, and started selling the new formula under the old name. That means if you fill a prescription written today for "Auralgan" the way you've filled one for the last zillion years, you've filled it wrong. There is no generic for the new Auralgan.
I interviewed Deston Therapeutics president and CEO David M. Preston in my imagination to get his take on the story:
Me: "So.......what the hell?"
Preston: "It's like this Drugmonkey, we at Doston Therapeutics don't have the integrity or work ethic to come out with a product we could sell based on the merits of its effectiveness, so we figured a disingenuous move such as this could lay a good foundation, both financially and ethically, towards the day when we are the type of company who can make their money withholding the results of scientific data, the way Merck and Schering do."
Me: "You do realize that 99.9% of doctors writing a prescription for Auralgan are intending to prescribe only a pain reliever, and not a pain reliever combined with mild anti-bacterial and anti fungal agents."
Preston: "You think we care?"
Me: "I see. I notice you've chosen acetic acid as your anti-bacterial ingredient. Do you know the common name for acetic acid?"
Preston: "I cannot comment on trade secrets"
Me: "Acetic acid is vinegar and you know it douchebag. Can I use Auralgan to sprinkle across my fish and chips?"
Preston: "As long as you pay us."
Me: "Is that a toupée you're wearing?"
Preston: "Get out of my office"
16 comments:
the last two lines of that imaginary interview made me a believer.
Drug Monkey,
I came across this little "scam" a few weeks ago at my pharmacy, Can you believe it!?!
But I'm fighting back! I refuse to dispense the new Auralgan. I call all MDs and have it switched to the generic. And if it's on weekends...errors happen. I'm taking a stand!!! Take my lic. away if you must!! ROT IN HELL DESTON!! Ditto for Qualaquin!!! - PJLouie
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In the words of Cartman- It's not cheating, it's being savvy!
Do pharmacists just take what the doctor has written and fill it or is there an obligation to ask the doctors office in case like this?
Right, because you have time for that! I've read why it takes so damn long to fill my prescription!)
I saw that, its retarded. Kinda like Librax (I still fill w/ the generic) Sersiouly. I'm sure no insruacne will pay for it and it will end up being like 80$ a bottle for some vineger. It's worse than the SOMA 250. I will call every doctor that wrtie this a phone call and subsitute with the old one, just to spite the company
effin awsome. NYS medicaid covers it already with remimbusrment at about $11/ml. Looks like it is way more than 80$ a bottle. YAY!
Ya, got the call from the company the other day to inform me about it and how it was not substitutable...
They offered to order me some thru McKesson and that my company was getting a special discount if we ordered 3 or some BS like that...."Should I orders yous a few" the nice thick southern accented african american woman (you know the one) asked. "No, I do not want it and I refuse to stock it on my shelf because I will forget to send it back and then it will go salvage and you guys got us to buy millions of it just to see it all go to waste because no doc in their right mind is going to write for this unless you send them to the Bahamas for a week, and I laugh at those docs and make them change it to the other stuff anyway and if they dont like it I will do it anyway". She then tried to tell me that I cannot do that, so I invited her to come up here and stop me!
I hate drug company calls that some stupid person reads a sheet of info to me that I could have gotten off of eFacts. I do not need you to tell me about stuff, if I care I will actually look it up or do a CE on it or some crap like that! I have a ton of scripts to fill, so leave me alone!
This reminds me of when Rondec DM kept changing its formulation, again and again. Why the hell? It's like friggin' Dimetapp DM anyway. So we'd have Carbofed DM as a generic and then they'd reformulate the brand again. Then we'd have the Carbofed DM, the Andehist DM and the 2 or 3 versions of the brand crap.
...Or... you could FUDGE the good ol' "Dr OK'd change to antipyrine/benzocaine" initial it, date it, say you spoke with "Maureen" and fill away
i'm so happy to hear that you pharmacists are doing something to fight back!
i just read this post and got that scary "this shit is FUCKED up and i hope someone is DOING something about it because if no one else is, i will!" feeling. Kind of the same feeling I get when i think about George Bush...or the "war on terror"...or Warren Jeffs...
Just go to Canada and buy it OTC for 6 bucks. Brand name, original formula and all.
Hey, off topic (although a good topic, to be sure). Have you seen this?
http://www.panexa.com/
It's pretty funny
Is that why I keep getting all those damn faxes about the "new formulation" and how we shouldn't dispense A/B Otic anymore.. even though cash price is like $15 and the "Brand Spankin' New" Auralgan is around $200?
Fuck that.
Qualaquin is the same kind of thing? Same name, same formulation, just a new "patent" therefore no more generic?
My, how sleazy.
Even my dog agrees it's sleazy.
I saw the new stuff on my shelf at work the other day and asked "why on earth do we have brand name Auralgan!?!" Then I looked at the label and saw the reformulation note and I swear no one could've rolled their eyes more than I did just then. Drug company morons.
FDA is cracking down on 'grandfathered' drugs i.e. those sold in commerce across State lines, before later required research had to show them as safe and efficacious. So, quinine had been one of the 'oldest' drugs and used extensively for leg cramps here in the US (and, I'm guessing probably more extensively outside the US where malaria is rampant). I mean malaria is a big, big problem in warmer 3rd world countries, and here it was a whopping business for drugstores that filled scripts for the gerontologists and nephrologists who prescribed quinine for every patient that mentioned a leg twitch.
Of course, quinine can chemically be produced cheaply from a natural substance or other synthetic reaction. It is cheap to make and cost the patients just a few bucks, and helped them in some way, a panacea, or not, it's got a rather distinctive taste so I'm told (anyone for quinine tonic water?) so imagine the taste alone would be 'activating'.
I saw a lot of quinine go out the door for leg cramps despite lack of definitive research (now Mirapex and other dopamine modulating drugs have taken up that market). Anyway, FDA told generic quinine makers to quit making it unless their company put the money into scientific research. Fat chance that a big name company would spend money for expensive research (and all research costs are expensive!!) for a cheap generic drug. Kind of like the makers of Xopenex halting further research on the uniqueness of their product now that it's going generic. But, the Qualaquin maker which is a small chemical company part of a larger conglomerate of generic drug manufacturers forked over the cash and did the research and came up with the data showing that quinine is not entirely safe and quantified the extent of prolonged Q-T interval, drug interactions, side-effects, etc, but efficacious for its indications.
Unfortunately, all that expensive research required something to pay the bills, and the price of Qualaquin hit the roof. Does one think the patient that paid just a few dollars for quinine is going to accept that they'd pay for so much for 'quinine', something cheap and potentially helpful, especially when the possibility of something more safe and potent is available which insurance companies had already agreed to pay for a strong indication (Parkinson's disease).
I'm not dissing Qualaquin, but this *%#!! about Auralgan is a giant loophole! C'mon research expense that go into proving vinegar is a mild antiseptic is probably similar to that which shows oxygen is helpful for those with asthma. Especially, when considering that homeopathic manufacturers come up with questionable remedies that are comparable to anything clean put into the ear? I remember when warmed 'sweet oil' was a remedy for earaches.
Now that Lilly keeps laying off employees does anyone think they'd want to show just how much injectable quinidine is 'safe and efficacious'?
Sean, I...I think I love you.
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