Generic Androgel?

When a formulation works perfectly fine and will go off patent. How is it that the formulation is changed to a "better" formulation (not necessarily wanted or desired by customer) and the former off-patent formulation is blocked from being offered as a generic.

I agree that this is greed and manipulation of the market.

 

How is the former off patent formulation blocked from being offered? When it goes generic--there are suddenly multiple sources for the drug. If the original company develops a "better" or even just different formulation(in this case a higher dose), why can't they sell it for a profit? The original generic formulation is still out there as an option to the consumer at a much lower price...

this is called econ 101, supply and demand. It's not "greed". Its business.

 

To the person that asked: How is it that the formulation is changed to a "better" formulation (not necessarily wanted or desired by customer) ...? You are implying that Solvay changed the formulation without any input from their customers. Actually, when the 1% AndroGel was on the market, there were constant requests from patients, pharmacists, doctors, and nurses to change the formulation in two ways: 1) make it more viscous so it would not run off the patients hands during application, and 2) make it more concentrated so that less gel would be required for those patients that used to require large doses (such as 10g of gel). The new 1.62% AndroGel meets both of those customer demands. There are other customer benefits as well, mainly lower cost. As the new product only requires one pump per month instead of two (for most patients), the monthly cost is somewhat less than the old product. So I guess I don't really understand your point or complaint. Maybe you can clarify that for me.

 

The new product is not cheaper than the 1% gel. The price of the two bottle carton of androgel 1% is identical to price for one bottle of 1.62%. The starting dose (two pumps) of 1.62% achieves lower testosterone levels than the starting dose (four pumps) for 1%. The prescribing information advice is to titrate dose to labs. Ultimately many patients will pay more to use 1.62% gel or they will achieve lower testosterone levels.

When is the generic going to be available? It is time for pricing on this product to be in line with the low complexity of the product development, which is next to nil for testosterone mixed in a gel.

 

Just for information, since a lot of guys have an issue with the price of AndroGel (me included) AndroGel only delivers approx 1% of the testosterone transdermally. a commando way of boosting this to 80% delivery is to apply DMSO on top of your AndroGel after it dries. This means you only have to use less than 1/4 of a pump or less for most men.