By Quentin Fottrell
- iStockphoto
Patients who take brand-name drugs could save up to 90% off their prescriptions thanks to a landmark Supreme Court ruling in favor of a generic drug company, experts say.
The justices ruled Tuesday that generic drug companies can challenge the way brand-name manufacturers describe their patents to the Food and Drug Administration. Experts say the complex patent system has long enabled pharmaceutical companies to hold onto their patents for longer by adding additional patents as the original expiration date draws near. “During this time the patent holder has a monopoly on the drug and can set pricing as they desire, says Kevin Flynn, president of Healthcare Advocates. “This ruling will allow people to have access to medication that they otherwise might not be able to afford.” (The National Pharmaceutical Association did not respond to request for comment.)
Drugs that lose their patents could save patients thousands of dollars a year on prescriptions, analysts say. “A patient can often save 90% or more if they can get a generic drug,” says Jeffrey Rice, chief executive officer of the Healthcare Bluebook. Tuesday’s ruling was in favor of a case lodged by Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, which wanted to introduce a generic version of Novo Nordisk diabetes drug Prandin. To be sure, some 78% of drugs dispensed are already generic drugs and brand drug makers lose 80% of their volume within six months of a drug going generic, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. Because generics are copies of existing FDA-approved drugs, they don’t usually have research and development costs, and may not have exactly the same “inert” ingredients which — for instance — might help the drug dissolve.
Hastening the entry of more generic drugs into the market would help cut insurance costs and save tax dollars, according to several recent studies. The U.S. Government Accountability Office study said the U.S. healthcare system saved $1 trillion from 1999 to 2010 by using generic drugs instead of brand-name drugs. And, in 2007, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Medicare saved $33 billion or 37% by using generic drugs. If some of the brand-name drugs for which generics were available were prescribed, an additional $4 billion would have been saved, says Devon Herrick, a senior fellow at the Dallas, Tx.-based National Center for Policy Analysis. “Today’s ruling could be good news for public and private health plans, says Ann Woloson, executive director of the non-profit U.S. Prescription Policy Choices.
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View super large preview icons in Leopard – Macworld Australia
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View super large preview icons in Leopard
4 May, 2009
by Rob Griffiths
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Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) includes some truly massive (512×512 pixel) icons, as we’ve already discussed. The system can also create large preview icons for videos and images, but to take advantage of these large icons (both standard OS X icons and preview icons), you need to use Cover Flow mode, and maximise the size of the overall window first and then the preview area within it.
Here’s another way to see large icons—which can be particularly useful for videos and photographs—that doesn’t require maximising a Cover Flow window. Instead, open the folder containing the files you’d like to view in supersize mode, and then click in that window’s Spotlight search box.
In the search box, type ”” (that’s two double-quotes), and then in the Search section of the window, change the setting from This Mac to the current folder (which should be listed in quotes next to This Mac), and change the search from Contents to File Name. This Spotlight search will basically find every file in the current folder. When the search is done, change the view mode to icon view (View -> As Icons or Command-1).
Now look at the lower right hand corner of the window, and you’ll see a slider. This controls the size of the preview icons you see in the window—and unlike the Finder’s View Options window, you can go way past 128×128 pixels. Move the slider all the way to the right for some truly massive previews (click the below image for a full-scale version):
Supersized icon preview (left) compared to standard 128×128 pixel icon (right)
Hopefully this slider will be incorporated into standard Finder windows in some future release of the OS, as it’s quite handy. For now, though, you can get to it with a relatively simple Spotlight query.
Related Tags: documents, finder, icons, mac os x, thumbnails
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Ahhh I was waiting for the pseudo-libertarians to come out shilling for PHMRMA. Welcome!
So the obvious conclusion from this story is that patented drugs hinder patient access and thereby hurts patients. There is a simple solution to that, just don’t allow drug patents!
Does anyone think that would bring more drugs to market or help patients in the long-term?
Alternatively, why not get rid of the FDA’s multi-billion dollar, decades-long approval process so more companies can compete in the market as it is? The FDA is not just about safety. It is about maintaining a monstrous bureaucracy to the backs of people who have no choice. If you don’t believe that, why does changing the package size require FDA approval?
CORRECTION! My last post in error. The second sentence should have been “the GENERIC has to be 90% as effective and the BRAND.” Who can say if it is 90%, (95% or even 105%? To me this is ludicrous. It either is or is not a reliable substitute.
JRD