Big Pharma's Big Problem contd. - "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we diet"

Matt Herper at Forbes is right on the money:

"One reason Big Pharma performed so well this quarter: the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, which is enrolling a ton of senior citizens in privately run health plans paid for by the government.

Right now, health maintenance organizations and pharmacy benefit managers are trying to attract as many Medicare patients as they can, says Roopesh Patel, a pharmaceutical analyst at UBS. He says exact numbers are hard to come by, but he believes that more prescriptions are being written for chronic care drugs like blood pressure and cholesterol medicines.

Down the road, this Medicare boost could be a double-edged sword. Once they have enrolled all those new patients, the HMOs and benefit managers will start exerting more price pressure on the drug companies, forcing them to sell more medicines on the cheap. In just a few years, the government could account for about half the money spent on prescription medicines in the U.S., and it may look to lower prices. "

Also, take a look at the patent expiration slideshow.