Perdue, Thai Hookers, and rolled up Benjamins

As you all have heard/read; Perdue, the maker Oxycontin (AKA: Hillbilly Heroin), decided to sue the shit out of all of the generic Oxycontin manufacturers and cease production (or some patent shit.  I really doubt Teva would make a generic knowing full well the patent is still legit).  Not only that, but they are bringing out NEW strengths for easy pharmacy shafting…er..patient dosing!

Hooray for Perdue! Only brand name Oxycontin in pharmacies everywhere!  Addicts Rejoice!  Pharmacists rejoice! Now we get to stock a bottle that costs $600 vs $300! Hooray! I could piss myself from all of the HAPPINESS that is going on right now.  Oh wait, I cant afford a change of pants because I have a fucking rainbow of gun-in-face magnet pills sitting on my shelf costing me a house payment.  Perdue is probably trying to recoup that $634 million in false “oh, this isn’t addicting.. Hey, it worked with Heroin” marketing, why else would they lawyer-up and magically get FDA approval for new strengths as their patent dwindled.  Some Perdue Exec is probably using wet-naps right now after her visit to the FDA office (ha ha!)

So Perdue, in an attempt to line its own pockets full of gold, have just shafted not the addicts (who just raise their prices when they sell this stuff) but the legit pain management patients.  Thats right, chronic pain patients now have to deal with trade name copays instead of generic copays.  Your grandfather have cancer? Perdue pretty much is saying “hm, that sucks, so sorry!” as they swim in their lakes of gold and snort their products off of the thighs of 17 year old Thai hookers with rolled up 100 dollar bills.  Thats right, I went there.

I’m all for free enterprise, making money, and selling a good product.  However its not cool when there is indian giving with the generics (like Plavix).  I guess 10+ years of “record high profits” with Oxycontin wasn’t enough.

Perdue Pharma Execs, I hope you never get cancer and have to deal with the same assholes that you have become.

Comments #

Comment by RJS on 2008-05-18 09:46:56 -0700 #

Generic companies will infringe on a patent whenever they think they can make more selling their generic while litigation is ongoing than they’ll lose when the judge rules against them. (Which is what happened with clopidogrel.)
Famciclovir was another, but the generic drugmaker seems to have won that one — or the case is still ongoing, I don’t know.
Frankly I’m surprised no generic manufacturer has taken on Cephalon’s Provigil seeing as how modafinil has been around since the 70s. Particle size patent my ass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil#History
As it happens, Patent Baristas is a good place for all of your IP-related information. Seems this OC shit’s been going on for a while. Suit followed by counter-suit. How utterly predictable.
http://www.patentbaristas.com/?s=oxycontin

Comment by IAPhrmr on 2008-05-18 14:22:49 -0700 #

HA! I don’t carry it (thank god), never have, never will…well, unless a long time patient of mine needs it. If you walk into my pharmacy and you ask for it (if you have not seen the 3 signs I have up saying that we do NOT carry Oxycontin in this store, I will tell you no!
I have had one person on it, but she was a cancer patient and I knew it was all legit. Some of the trash that comes in looking for it, I just laugh and point to the sign!

Comment by Dave Broitman on 2008-05-18 15:05:10 -0700 #

Hey,
I know we’re all about rants and stuff, but guess what, I’m a Pharmacist that made a movie about us! Please come to the screenings and enjoy and say hello!
Don’t Shoot The Pharmacist!, a feature comedy by Dave Broitman, is coming soon. Starring Ben Bailey (Cash Cab Show Host), Godfrey (Soul Plane, Phat Girlz, 7-up spokesman) and Steve Byrne (Comedy Central, Real Wedding Crashers).
Zack Wright is a Brooklyn Pharmacist stuck on a zany graveyard shift as the wacky night winds down with an armed and desperate man who will stop at nothing to get what he needs.
Monday June 2 is the World Premiere screening at Hoboken International Film Festival. It’s set at 70 Adams street Theater in Hoboken, NJ. Check http://www.Hobokeninternationalfilmfestival.com for tickets and info. Yes, I will be at the screening along with a couple of stars of this flick and do a Q and A afterwards and meet you guys.
Also, the movie is screening at the SINY Film Festival as well and we’re a nominee for BEST COMEDY FEATURE! The Staten Island premiere plays on Friday, June 6 at 2pm in staten island (College of Staten Island, Recital Hall Theater) and Saturday, June 7 at 12 noon in staten island (College of Staten Island, Lecture Hall Theater).
The Brooklyn Premiere plays on June 7 at 8pm (Brooklyn College’s Whitman Hall !). I will be at all of these screenings along with some stars of this flick and will do a Q and A after each of the screenings and will be looking forward to meet you. You can even get free tickets to the Staten Island and Brooklyn screenings by dining at one of the 54 participating Staten Island eateries between June 2 through June 7. Check http://www.Sifilmfestival.org for tix and info.
You can check out the trailer (the quicktime version is currently active) at http://www.DontShootThePharmacist.com/Trailer.htm
Thanks!
Dave Broitman
Writer/Director and Pharmacist
[email protected]
http://www.DontShootThePharmacist.com

Comment by Angry Male Nurse on 2008-05-18 16:01:08 -0700 #

I forget- which is the OC that addicts can crush and shoot, no waxy matrix. Was it the TEVA’s or the Purdue Brand OC. What ever happen to the endo’s. Hopped up fuckeers in the ER used to tell me they were the best, designed to be shot IV. Even the name is cool…”Endo’s” Well, if these brand fuckers are smart, they get rid of that gel shit that slows a junkie down for about two minutes (kind of like an ignition to a car thief) and start producing some shit that can be plugged, popped, parachuted, sniffed, and shot in no time t’all. Mass imbibed.
I am a drug addict-You’re a drug addict. Yeeeaaahhhh!!

Comment by PharmGamerKid on 2008-05-18 22:03:00 -0700 #

With all these “brand names” coming out, can you imagine what the world would be if the same thing were to happen to aspirin? Aspirin XR, aspirin IR, aspirin SR, aspirin XL, aspirin super duper caplet.
(wtf is the point of a caplet anyway. make it a capsule or a tablet, dang it)

Comment by Sean on 2008-05-18 22:12:09 -0700 #

Sad thing is…If the Purdue Execs won’t have to pay a DIME for their Oxycontin. I used to work in East Hanover, NJ. Same town where NOVARTIS resides…ANY employee of Novartis pay NOTHING for their products, they also pay nothing for SANDOZ generics. Because Novartis owns Sandoz. That is why for the longest time the generic Lotrel Capsules were the same as the brand…..

Comment by The Angry Marketer on 2008-05-19 02:25:44 -0700 #

Dear Angry Pharmacist,
I think it’s quite comical that on your blog here you bitch about addicts and companies trying to “line their pockets full of gold” yet here you are profiting from the following ad:
Get Pain Pills Easy (OXY)
No Prior Prescription? Get Free CD $500-30 Day Credit, Free Shipping
http://www.Drugstores-Online.com
I, too, am all for free enterprise and making money. And I’m all about selling people GOOD products which will enhance their lives. In fact that’s what I do for a living. But what I hate with just as much passion as you seem to hate addicts and old people, is scum bags like you who PROFIT from unethical marketing practices.
-The Angry Marketer
P.S. Ok, I lied. I don’t really hate you. I don’t hate anyone. I just want you to see the error of your ways. Although after reading through your blog archives I seriously doubt that’s ever going to happen.

Comment by AMom on 2008-05-19 11:16:23 -0700 #

Good post TAP. The makers of all these medicines, C-II or not, their only in it for the money, screw the patients. They make their living off of people who are suffering.

Comment by Lipstick on 2008-05-20 19:23:40 -0700 #

LOVE LOVE LOVE your blog. I am like a TAP evangelist-I am always telling all my pharm friends to read. I am six years into retail practice and you are dead on with your insights.

Comment by Surly Night Guy on 2008-05-21 05:24:25 -0700 #

Well this should come as no surprize. After all Perdue also reimburses the big chains (CVS, Walgreens etc. ) Pill for pill of what is stolen in a robbery. Who cares about the emotional trauma or physical harm that may come to the staff as long as the profit margin is good.
Hope no one from Perdue ever comes to see me about it. I wish someone would put a gun in the face of the execs at Perdue and ask them if they like it.

Comment by jonathan on 2008-05-21 20:33:41 -0700 #

I suppose fortunately I have a good prescription coverage plan where I really don’t care if I get name brand. For me, generics are $10 and name brand is $15. For an extra five bucks I can get a name brand drug. I know the drug is chemically equivalent, but what is not the same is the binding agents, dyes, etc.
I have had cases where I took a generic version of a pill (Allegra) that made me sick to my stomach whilst the name brand version did not. I do not know if it is a fluke, but I can tell you it is not psychological.
While making additional strengths to extend patents might of been a hidden agenda, I agree with their assessment in Purdue’s press release. They don’t have enough in-between strengths.
There is quite a gap in between 40 mg and 80 mg. I can easily see where 40 mg won’t be sufficient to eradicate pain while 80 mg can be too much narcotics. So a 60 mg pill is necessary. The doubling of each previous dose never made sense to me. So in a way, I am glad they did this.
What I do not like is when AstraZenica chemically modified Prilosec into Nexium and say that Nexium is more efficient and safer in order to have that patent. Then petition the FDA and allow Prilosec over the counter so they can sell both and make mad money. I think this is more of a case when a pharmaceutical company is trying to rape their customers and patients and send escorts (drug reps) to give lap dances (pens) to doctors to promote Nexium by saying lies how much better it is while not too long ago they did the same thing when trying to promote Prilosec!

Comment by nobody on 2008-05-26 07:23:19 -0700 #

Aren’t Thai hookers usually about 12 or 13 years old–or is it just the rich old slobby white fucks that are into the younger ones?
I once knew a guy who owned a local pharmaceutical manufacturing company. His wife owned a store at an overpriced mall. Wow. They had a giant house complete with beautiful landscaping and swimming pool. Corporate is money, not ethics. If he got cancer, he’d simply have his whole body replaced with Johnny Depp’s.

Comment by http://openid.aol.com/binkyface06 on 2008-05-29 11:07:35 -0700 #

I used to sell pharmaceuticals for McKesson (before they shut us down out here in Sunny CA because it was too expensive to do bidness here). I can’t tell you how many times I got screamed at by pharmacists and techs because we had no generic plavix. Sorry, but Clopidogrel has been discontinued. Oh, but the pt’s insurance doesn’t cover Plavix, WTF am I supposed to do?? Scream, scream, vent, project, scream some more, hang up. Basically, it was like that almost all day some days.
Well, anyway, I read on SNN that Sandoz (read:Novartis, owner of everything) and Ratiopharm in Germany will now market generic Plavix. I wonder if Sandoz will only be able to market it in Swizerland or Europe proper, or if it’ll finally make its way back to our shelves. And I wonder how bad this will piss off Apotex?
AS far as that first comment, about generic subsidiaries stealing patents, quite honestly I’m sick of Big Pharma and their money grubbing practices. They pour all their money into the big markets: ED drugs, weight loss drugs, and pain meds and they shelve the one drug that combats Visceral Leshmaniasis (that brought India from a 90% mortality rate to a less than 10% mortality rate, thanks to One World Health) because there’s no money in it. They milk poor 70 year olds on retirement and Medicare by forcing them to buy Plavix when the generic works just as well, the only difference is it doesn’t have Sanofi’s or Bristol-Meyer’s stamp on it so they don’t make the big dollars from it. (read: over 30% of their profits, according to the NE Journal of Medicine, with Plavix being the second most sold drug: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/355/13/1297)
They care more about their “intellectual property” than they do about patients in need of medicine and their ability to pay or the insurance company’s willingness to pay for it (otherwise, IMO, BM-S and S-A would lobby for Insurance companies and Medicare to cover brand name Plavix.. but hey, they don’t, because it means less money for them.)
So GOOD FOR APOTEX for flooding the market in 2006, maybe these generic manufacturers ought to take a stand and say a big EFF YOU to Big Pharma and their intellectual property. Because Big Pharma has basically said Eff You to us, their consumers, and in not so many words told us they don’t care about our HEALTH, only our MONEY. If you don’t have any MONEY, then forget about being HEALTHY, at least with our drugs that we hoard and don’t allow generics for.
/rant

Comment by http://openid.aol.com/binkyface06 on 2008-05-29 11:11:13 -0700 #

Sorry, linkage to CNN Money article re: Sandoz and generic plavix.
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200805281321DOWJONESDJONLINE000776_FORTUNE5.htm
-Mary

Comment by http://openid.aol.com/mikells43 on 2008-07-10 22:20:49 -0700 #

how bout predue getting declined for a new “abuse resistant formulation” with a “plastic coating” lol what a fucking joke.
yea they are fuckers alright. this shit should have been off the market years ago. before 2000 even hit. isn’t it funny tho they let it on the market and let people die and main line it and then all the sudden suboxone comes out. all the sudden anouther way to make money no matter what if someones addicted, the suboxone will make it easer to come off the oxy. now they are making money if the addict is getting high or not cause if they are not using they are sick. how fucking sick. u need to go on larry g.’s radio show about addiction. http://www.prescriptionaddictionradio.com you would be great on it.

Comment by ATAP (Another The Angry Pharmacist) on 2008-08-08 23:46:53 -0700 #

Oh damn…where should I even begin on this one. Okay, here goes. Perdue had contracted with Watson to market their “generic” version of Oxycontin…so they were already making money off the “generic” Oxycodone ER that came out of the same factory. So I guess they realized that they could make even more insane amounts of money by hiring tons of lawyers and filing these court cases to cease and desist marketing of generic versions on the pretext that they’ve extended their patent by introducing NEW STRENGTHS!!! AND because it’s in the middle of litigation, state medicaid hasn’t registered that the generic versions aren’t available any longer and are screwing those pain-management patients on medicaid by requiring prior authorization due to brand-name selection.
I am SO Sick and tired of Big-Pharma and their “games”. In one hand you have them courting MDs and espousing the EVILS of generics, how they’re not bioequivalent, how they don’t work the same, how the law allows up to a 20% variance from the trade-name product in bioavailability. Blah, blah, blah. In the other hand, you have those same companies, in the guise of their “generic divisions”, such as the highlighted Sandoz, owned by Novartis…or Greenstone labs, owned by Pfizer…or Dava Pharmaceuticals, owned by Abbott…I could go on, practicing those very things they bad-mouth and detest openly. Combine it with the legal antics to prolong ancient patents and prevent the emergence of a generic competitor!!!
National healthcare reform? No…just drug approval reform and patent reform…Big Pharma has 1-2 lobbyists PER COGRESSMAN!!! They spend more money in advertising than in R&D!!!
*breath* Okay, I’m calm now…catch you on the next one…

Comment by Shy Intern on 2008-12-14 23:22:47 -0800 #

“…as they swim in their lakes of gold and snort their products off of the thighs of 17 year old Thai hookers with rolled up 100 dollar bills. Thats right, I went there.”
I went there, too. Thailand is nice.
Hahahaha 🙂
– Coy Intern