A number of major US retailers, including Walgreen and Safeway are suing AstraZeneca accusing the drugmaker of using illegal tactics to maintain its dominant position in the antiulcerant market by switching patients from Losec/Prilosec (omeprazole) to the follow-up drug Nexium (esomeprazole), even after the former's patent expired in 2001.
The retailers have filed a civil suit in a District of Columbia court, alleging that the firm used fraud and "exclusionary conduct," saying that "while this product-switching strategy was enormously successful and profitable for AstraZeneca, it was an economic disaster for American consumers."
The company said that it denies the claims and will vigorously contest them.
Source: PharmaTimes
1 comment:
This is an old and very successful trick, that all big pharma use to protect thier business once one drug goes generic and similar new is available. They will designe a promotional plan that will see doctors switching patients for no good reason at all. Often the "new" drug could be actually inferior. When Losec was introduced and it was a good drug and improvement but due to its cost it should have been saved for those patients that failed on older still effective drugs. However Astra went out and promoted it as a first line of therapy for ulcers. It was so successful that for instance in Ontario, they almost broke the bank of that province's drug plan budget. At one time sales were 200 million per year only in that province. There is no end what the big pharma wants and would do to strip mine our health care systems, be it private or social, they do not discriminate.
In the old Rome, Cesar who ran public toilets, said when criticised for being in such low class business: " The money does not smell".
Big pharma knows that too.
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