Posted by ttee on May 18, 2006, at 9:03:01
In reply to Re: Emsam: aabag, posted by lymom3 on May 18, 2006, at 6:30:49
I was just teasing. Drug costs are a big problem and there does not seem to be any quick fixes. The FDA made Emsam jump through a million hoops before they gave it the low dose approval and that cost an extra 4 years and who knows how many millions of dollars. The more trouble the drug company has with the FDA, the more they have to charge for the end product to recover their costs. Last time I checked, the drug companies are in the business of making money and if we take that away from them, there won't be any new meds discovered. Since Emsam is never going to be a 1st or 2nd line med choice, it is never going to make big bucks for the drug company. For the majority with its only FDA approved indication of Depression, Emsam is going to be reserved for those that have already spent thousands on other "safer" meds first. If the FDA had approved Emsam 5 years ago, I would guess the cost would be the same as any other new AD. No matter how well Emsam works, it will never be a billion dollar seller like the other AD are, or were before they went generic. Emsam will never be a blockbuster for any of the drug companies involved. The target market for Emsam is too small being the minority of us that have failed every other possible med there is. In this day and age that it only makes economic sense for the drug companies to develop blockbuster meds, I feel lucky that Emsam got through the drug company’s bean counters objections.
A company called Neurocrine just lost 75% of it's market value on Tuesday, when the FDA said it didn't have time to review the new drug application and didn't approve Indoplin. Neurocrine is working on 3 other new meds for depression. This FDA decision is going to hurt all the drug companies working on new meds and we will end up footing the bill for these added costs. In my opinion, the FDA needs to be totally reorganized.
poster:ttee
thread:642628
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060515/msgs/645436.html