Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Pharmacies making Generic Versions are being sued by Manufacturers

“Generic drugs are approved only after a rigorous review by FDA and after a set period of time that the brand product has been on the market exclusively. A generic drug is a medication with the exact same active ingredient as the brand-name drug.” It is not unusual to buy generic versions of a particular […]

Pharma and Chamber of Commerce Suing to Stop Drug Negotiations

Big business organization in the form of the Chamber of Commerce and a Phamaceutical company are joining together and taking on the government to keep it from negotiating pharmaceutical pricing. Chances are well in favor of this ending up in SCOTUS based upon a moneyed corporation willing to spend its way into court. A resource […]

Saying No to Insurance Company Medication Switches

I can not say I have been exposed to any of this switcheroo as my meds are older technology. We are also on regular Medicare and not Medicare Advantage. I have a larger say with the former. Part D works mostly except the pharmacies in my area are less helpful than they were in Michigan. […]

Brands and generics pharmaceuticals…

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals et al, No. 12-416.   Via the New York Times comes this note: Last year, for the third time since 2003, the 11th Circuit upheld the agreements as long as the allegedly anticompetitive behavior that results — in this case, keeping the generic drug off the market […]

$295 Million Would Buy A Lot of T-Shirts

Ken Houghton notes that the first thing anyone learns from Pietra Rivoli’s The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade is how pernicious the U.S. subsidy of its cotton industry is.* Now the WTO has discovered the obvious: American goods will face [$294.7] […]