And the funny-word of the day is...
... Viopril.
A 'new' ACE-inhibitor that is featured in today's episode of House. According to House, '(a)ll they’ve done is added antacid' .
"You know how I know the new ACE-inhibitor is good? Because the old one was good. The new one is really the same, it’s just more expensive. A lot more expensive. See, that’s another example of Ed’s brilliance. Whenever one of his drugs is about to lose its patent he has his boys and girls alter it just a tiny bit and patent it all over again. Making not just a pointless new pill, but millions and millions of dollars. Which is good for everbody, right? The patients? Pish! Who cares? They’re just so damn sick! God obviously never liked them anyway."
OK, House is just being House, but the name 'Viopril' really tickles me.
Labels: pharma
posted by angry doc at
2:27 pm
3 Comments:
so I guess you are not a very big fan of those polypill thing
By
Anonymous, At
December 11, 2005 11:52 pm
That's not the joke, but still... combi-pills are fine if they give you what you want at a lower price, like a combo-meal, but not if they limit your options to adjust the dosage of the individual component, or cost way more than the component drugs would.
By
angry doc, At
December 12, 2005 8:20 am
"combi-pills" are fine IF they give you what you want... but like you said, it's not a joke, pharmaceutical companies repackage the same chemicals with a slightly altered molecular structure here and there and give it a new name.
A PERFECT example is Shire's new drug: Vyvanse...
Adderall XR's patent is about to expire, so when that happens and a swarm of cheap, generic racemic amphetamine capsules are released onto the market, and Shire's profit goes down the toilet.
So Shire released Vyvanse, which is just dexedrine essentially. I think the concept is great, but it's a perfect way to encourage doctors and parents of kids on adderall to percieve this 'new' drug as the wave of the future. So in the end Shire gets to hold onto those consumers spending outrages prices when Adderall fades out when it suddenly becomes "inferior" to the new brand name drugs.
By
PatSib, At
August 05, 2007 4:07 pm
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