The email sent will contain a link to this article, the article title, and an article excerpt (if available). For security reasons, your IP address will also be included in the sent email.
Alliance for Natural Health, August 2, 2011 @ 5:42 pm In Uncategorized | No Comments
http://www.anh-usa.org/ndi-draft-guidance-is-a-big-fat-gift-to-big-pharma/
Want to let the drug industry take your favorite supplements off the market, patent them, and sell them back to you—by doctor’s prescription only—for 10 or 100 (or even more) times what you’re paying now? A follow-up to our recent Action Alert [1].
As Big Pharma becomes more desperate to boost flagging profits, the industry will likely use this tactic to find new sources of revenue—and shame on the FDA for so blatantly aiding and abetting it!
This coming year, seven of the world’s twenty bestselling drugs will lose their patent protection and can be sold in generic forms. On this list are the top two money-makers ever created: cholesterol fighting (but overall health-threatening) Lipitor [2] and blood thinning (but bone-destroying) Plavix. This wave of expiring drugs patents will have unprecedented and devastating effects on the industry bottom line. One drug recently made available in generic form—Protonix, a medication for severe heartburn [3] (again, not a drug we would use, and especially dangerous when used with the blood-thinner mentioned above)—previously cost about $170 per month when it was still under patent; its generic version now costs $16. With seven of the top-selling drugs expected to see similarly drastic drops in prices, the drug industry is in a panic [4]—especially considering the fact that there are no new “blockbuster” drugs in the pharmaceutical industry pipeline. Under these circumstances, why not try to turn some supplements into drugs?
Return to Article