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The FDA said Thursday that it has received more than 150 requests from generic-drug companies for the agency’s help in obtaining samples. In some cases, the brand-name drug companies may invoke an FDA program to limit distribution for drugs that carry major risks, such as birth defects. In others, brand-name drug companies use contracts with distributors and wholesalers to limit distribution of their drugs.

Jeremy Greene, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said that this was an important first step, but pointed out that shame, alone, may not be a powerful enough incentive to change behavior. Martin Shkreli became a celebrity villain when he increased the price of an antiparasitic medication called Daraprim by 5,000 percent — but the price of that drug hasn’t changed.

“If the case of Daraprim and Turing Pharmaceuticals is any guide, public shaming alone is not likely to end these anticompetitive practices,” Greene said in an e-mail. “A world’s worth of public shame was not enough to encourage the company to bring the price back down.”

…continue reading ‘FDA Shames Drug Companies Suspected of Using ‘Gaming Tactics’ to Delay Competition’

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