Advertising includes drug samples given to doctors, which many/most of them give to patients who can't afford said drugs.
How many of them are you willing to cut off?
How many of them are you willing to cut off?
It’s shockingly effective, look at say prescriptions for patented opioids vs the vast numbers of equally effective generics. Doctors are extremely susceptible to advertising just like most people, the difference is it’s not their money being spent.
So, it’s not a question of which is prescribed more, it’s a question of why branded opioids are ever prescribed. We aren’t talking about a ~100 Billion dollars of accidental waste, it took a lot of work to extract that from the general public.
As a part of my job I’ve talked to insurance companies and they aren’t willing to pay for branded pain relief drugs unless there is some differentiating value.
1987 “May: MS Contin, (morphine sulfate) approved; first formulation of an opioid pain medicine that allowed dosing every 12 hours instead of every 4 to 6 hours.”
1990 “August: Duragesic (fentanyl transdermal system) approved; first formulation of an opioid pain medicine in a patch (sometimes referred to as a “skin patch”) that is changed every 3 days.”
1995 “December: OxyContin (oxycodone controlled-release) approved; first formulation of oxycodone that allowed dosing every 12 hours instead of every 4 to 6 hours.”