Visiting FDA pharmacist
promotes generic drugs
A U.S. Food and Drug Administration official and local health organizations are beginning a push to encourage islanders to use generic drugs instead of brand-name products.
Robert West, deputy director of the FDA's Office of Generic Drugs, traveled here to deliver a message that "generic drugs are safe and effective alternatives to name-brand products consumers may be taking."
They are also a lot less expensive, West pointed out in an interview.
Nearly half of prescriptions nationally are filled generically, but they account for less than 10 percent of the money spent on prescription drugs, he said.
West's visit this month coincided with a campaign launched by the Hawaii Medical Service Association and other health organizations to inform consumers and health care professionals about generic drugs.
Dr. John Berthiaume, HMSA medical director of pharmacy management, said about 43 percent of prescription drugs used by members are generic and account for about 15 percent of spending on prescriptions.
"The average cost of a brand-name drug is about three times as expensive as an average generic drug for HMSA," he said.
West, a pharmacist, said one of the challenges is countering TV ads for brand-name products and product promotions by drug firms through physicians. Generic drugs are approved with the same standards used by the FDA for trade-name products, and people who switch to generic products will not notice any difference, he said.
Drugs are the fastest-rising component of health care costs, West said.
"Every month or two, another so-called blockbuster innovative product is available for competition," he said, explaining drugs usually receive five years of patent protection when they are approved. "But as soon as they go off patent and we can approve the generic equivalent, it would clearly bring the costs down."
West noted that lower-cost drugs people are ordering from Canada are products that are not available in generic form yet in the United States.
Berthiaume said HMSA has about 625,000 members with drug coverage, and the cost of prescription drugs is rising at about 19 percent a year.
Each member on average is filling eight to nine prescriptions a year, totaling more than $250 million annually, he said.
The member co-payment for a generic drug for most HMSA drug plans is $5, he said. It is $20 for a preferred name-brand drug. For other name-brand drugs, the co-payment is $20 plus an additional differential, he said.
Berthiaume said HMSA is trying to counteract messages directed at consumers through advertising by:
>> Sending physicians quarterly pharmacy reports to tell them what their generic prescribing rate is relative to brand products.>> Sending them lists of patients on brand-name drugs who possibly could be switched to generic products.
>> Rolling out coupons to physicians to give to patients waiving the first co-payment of a generic medication for a newly started prescription.
