Greedy Trial Lawyer
Take This Little Purple Pill
Category: Gaming The System
Here's the plan. Our patent on Prilosec is about to expire. We can formulate a nearly identical drug that we will call Nexium and launch it as the purple pill in a huge advertising campaign on television. We should be able to charge more for the new drug and to generate enormous profits. If the regulators or public accuse us of using misleading tactics we can take the lead in advocating industry-wide standards for drug marketing. The scheme is foolproof.
Anglo-Swedish drugs giant AstraZeneca made news this week. It announced that the company's pre-tax profit stood at $1.743 Billion during the third quarter of 2005, up 23 percent from the equivalent figure last year. Others reported that Nexium (known as the purple pill in thousands of television spots) has been the subject of lawsuits filed by consumer groups and the AFL-CIO, which alleged the company misled patients into switching to the more expensive Nexium as the patent on its nearly identical, older Prilosec pill was set to expire.
Press Release: AstraZeneca said it has adopted an industry group's guidelines on direct-to-consumer advertisements, and the principles are now reflected in its TV ads for gastric acid treatment Nexium launched earlier this year. And, on Tuesday it proposed a mandatory requirement for pharmaceutical companies to submit all direct-to-consumer advertising to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for review prior to its use.
Our plan is working.
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