Generic versions of seven of the world's 20 best-selling drugs will become available over the next 14 months, including the top two sellers -- cholesterol fighter Lipitor and blood thinner Plavix, the Associated Press reports.
According to London research company EvaluatePharma Ltd., pharmaceuticals totaling about $255 billion in global annual sales will go off patent, including drugs for blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, depression, cholesterol, HIV, and bipolar disorder.
The development may be bad news for drug companies, which lose hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, but good news for insurers who pay for drugs, including the U.S. government.
And it's good news for patients, too. IMS Health calculates that the average copayments last year were $6 for generics, compared with $24 for brand-name drugs given preferred status by an insurer and $35 for nonpreferred brands.
According to the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, generics saved the U.S. health care system more than $824 billion from 2000 through 2009, and now save about $1 billion every three days.
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