Drug-makers launch generic challenge

Source: Healthcare Digital

Date :05/07/2007 09:31:48

UK drug-makers are launching a legal challenge to moves by the NHS to switch large numbers of patients onto cheap generic prescription medicines.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) believes such schemes are potentially unsafe and primary care doctors are receiving additional payments to prescribe certain low-cost medicines in contravention of European law.

The industry group said it had started a judicial review and its lawyers had won permission to bring proceedings to court, although a hearing is not expected before the end of the year.

A Department of Health spokesman said the government would rigorously defend the legal challenge.

Much of the uproar surrounds the use of cheap generic versions of statin drugs, which are prescribed to people with high cholesterol to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

A spokesman for the department of health said: "The NHS could potentially save 84 million pounds if it switched to low cost generic statins. These generic drugs are safe, of good quality and just as effective, and used to treat many millions of patients worldwide."

Drug manufacturers, however, contend not all statins are the same. Some newer ones, for example, have proved more effective in clinical trials than older pills.

July 05 2007