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SUNE, 1969

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

11

DRUG

By SIDNEY MARGOLIUS

A drug may be offered by
one manufacturer under a
trade-marked brand name for
$5 to $10, and by another,
under its generic or common
name for only $1 to $2.

You can even find much
greater differences in prices
among widely-used medicines.
For example, a prescription
for Pentids cost a druggist
$1.99, and he charges you, on
the average $3.62, as a gov-
ernment task force on pre-
scription drugs found in a
1966 survey. But the equival-
ent generic, Penicillin G. Po-
tasium, costs the druggist only
ae cents and, if he charged a

ypical dispensing fee of $1.81
oi filling the Rx, you would

pay only $2.04.

GENERIC NAME
= BRANDS FAR CHEAPER

Economics Student

Such differences led an en-
terprising Geneva College
economics student to survey
the attitudes of doctors and
druggists toward brand name
vs. generic prescriptions.
~The student, Charles M.
Young, found that the doctors
and retail pharmacists often
do not agree on the quality
and effectiveness of generic
drugs. The doctors proved to
be noticeably more confident
of generic drugs, and more

conscious of the high prices

of brand-name drugs.

While 23 per cent of the
doctors did report that they
prescribe drugs by generic
name, and over 60 per cent
consider the quality to be
about the same, almost to a
man the pharmacists reported

McMILLAN HEADS UP
RESEARCH DEPARTMENT

Oliver McMillan, IWA In-
ternational Director of Educa-
tion, has been appointed to
take over the Department of
Research when the present

Director Walter Simcich
leaves the Union in July.

The appointment was made

by International President
Ron Roley who stated, “It is
necessary because of the lack
of funds to maintain a depart-
ment smaller than really fits
the needs of our International
Union, we nonetheless want to
work on projects that are most
beneficial to the membership.”

U.S. MAGAZINES

TO COST CANADIANS $1,500,000

Even under the new in-
creased rates, it will cost the
Canadian post office more
than $1.5 million to deliver
Time magazine and the Read-
er’s Digest in this country
this year.

This was the estimate given
recently in reply to a written

question posed by New Demo-
crat Barry Mather.

In the reply, Communica-
tions Minister Eric Kierans
said the post office would in-
cur deficits of $735,153.00

handling Time and $851,636.00
delivering Reader’s Digest.

FIRST DAY BACK ON TH’ JOB AN’ AYE FEELS $O
GOOP ... AYE VISH | VAS BACK IN TOWN!

that they fill most prescrip-
tions with brand-name pro-
ducts. So it is the pharmacists
themselves who tend to be tne
main block to the public de-
mand for lower-price generic
drugs. Whether or not they

really believe that brand-
name drugs are more depend-

able, as they say, the fact is-

they do make more money by
selling the higher - priced
brand-name drugs because
they work on a percentage
profit system.

Dollar Profit

Their dollar profit or margin
is especially high on the more
expensive drugs. On a drug
with a low wholesale cost like
Chlor-Trimeton (71 cents at
wholesale), the pharmacist’s
margin would be $1.47 (retail
price $2.18). But on an ex-
pensive brand-name prescrip-
tion like Dexedrine, with a
wholesale cost $2.71, pharma-
cist’s margin rises to $2.20 and
you would pay, on the aver-
age, $4.91, the task force re-
port showed.

In contrast, the equivalent
generic-name Dextroampheta-
mine Sulphate would cost the
pharmacist only 19 cents.
With a dispensing fee of $1.81
for his expenses and profit,
the price of this prescription
would be only $2.

Dispensing Fee

Or take the widely-used
antibiotic, Achromycin. The
pharmacist pays $2.56 and
charges $4.13. If he used the
generic Tetracycline, he
would pay 66 cents for the
equivalent prescription, and,
with a dispensing fee of $1.81,
charge you $2.47. You would
pay considerably less and the
pharmacist would make even
a little more on this system.

In general, a flat-fee dispen-
sing system would work out
‘as well for the druggist and
would mean savings for the
consumer if it encouraged the
use of generic drugs.

Young’s survey in his own
locality found that doctors
tend to be much more skep-
tical of brand-name prices
than are pharmacists. About

half the doctors considered -

the price difference to be
justified, and one - fourth
thought they were both justi-
fiable and unjustifiable. The
other fourth considered them
just plain unjustifiable.

But the pharmacists sur-
veyed were 100 per cent con-
vinced that the higher brand-
mame prices are justified.
They unanimously attributed
the higher prices first of all
to research (100 per cent);
secondly, to quality control
(59 per cent), and thirdly to
advertising (29 per cent).

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Contrary to the pharma-
cists’ claims, drug producers’
expenditures for research are
but a small fraction of their
charges. One of the largest
manufacturers, Pfizer, spends
only about half as much for
research as for advertising.

Young points out that drug
manufacturers spend $800
million a year to advertise to
doctors through salesmen and
ads in medical journals. This
is at the rate of $3,000 per
doctor.

In further fact, some of the
most important discoveries
have come not from drug
manufacturers but from uni-
versity professors, and other
private and government re-
searchers. Many “new” drugs
are merely combinations of
old ones.

Ban 78 Products

In fact, the Food and Drug
Administration recently an-
nounced that it intends to ban
78 antibiotic products contain-
ing added ingredients because
they were not necessary to
treat the intended ailment.
The FDA pointed out that
using a shotgun approach to
treat an illness actually ex-
posed the patient to unneces-
sary risk.

The doctors also showed
more confidence in the relia-
bility of the lower-priced
generic drugs. One com-
mented: “There have been
some reports lately that cer-
tain generic drugs may be of
lower quality but in our prac-
tical experience this has not
been a problem.”

In making his very com-
plete survey, Young also

questioned the Department of
Health, Education and Wel-

fare about the reliability of
generic drugs. Vincent-Gard-
ner, an HEW researcher, an-
swered that “only in a few

- instances” had the task force

found any difference among
drugs of chemical equivalents
meeting official standards.

The task force feels that the
few differences “have been
grossly exaggerated as a
major public health hazard”,
Gardner charged.

Generic Drugs

If doctors now are con-
vinced of the reliability of
generic drugs, they ought to
convince the local pharma-
cists. There are _ reliable
wholesale suppliers of generic
drugs. Young cites, for ex-
ample, Wolin’s, a long-estab-
lished drug wholesaler which
has never had a product-lia-
bility suit against it. Even
some of the pharmacists
Young questioned admitted
that they considered reliable
the generic drugs from the
large manufacturers who also
sell under trade - marked
brand names.

The problem is that the
pharmacist must follow the
doctor’s prescription if the
doctor specifies a brand name.
But if the doctor specifies the
generic drug, the pharmacist
can supply the brand name
and charge the same high
price. And when Peritrate, for
example, has a wholesale cost
of $3.37, while the equivalent
Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate
costs only a dime, the differ-
ence can be startling. So can
the difference between Tel-
drin, with a wholesale cost of
$1.40, and the generic chlor-
pheniramine maleate, at 15
cents.

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