Vancocin goes off patent

[Bry]

ViroPharma’s lead drug, Vancocin, no longer has patent protection. Vancocin, which had sales of about $240 million last year, is an antibiotic for bacterial infections of the lower digestive tract that result in a potentially fatal condition known as clostridium difficile-associated disease.

http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia ... aily3.html

Bry

[HEATHER28]

Bry,

Please post any articles you find on the internet by posting ONLY THE HYPERLINK. You CANNOT legally copy or share any file on the internet without permission from the author, do to copy right laws. If you read in Media Reports at all you will notice that I post The name of the story and the hyperlink to it.

Also regarding your story. Just because they dont have a patent on Vanco anymore doesnt mean that they are going to stop producing/selling it (for those of you who are worried).

[trob25]

No, but I think it means that generic companies can now make generic versions that will be much cheaper, like $10 per bottle similar to Flagyl generics.

[HEATHER28]

trob25,

I totally agree with you. I think that there not having a patent on it anymore could be a good thing. In the since has opend the door so that other drug co. out there can make a generic version of it and sell it at a much cheaper price. This really could not have come at a better time, with the US economy in the toilet right now. There are alot of people out there (and even on here) that are probably going to benifit from this.

[feelinghopeful]

Now that's good news. Even if you're getting a fecal transplant you're supposed to go on an effective antibiotic for two weeks beforehand. Hard to get around it. I did the math once and was stunned by how much I would have spent on Vancocin if I didn't have insurance. Made me very frightened over the prospect of losing it - which was looking very real for a while.

Thanks for the link!

[Allison]

A generic equivalent for Vancocin is not going to happen as soon as projected. We’ve been following this one closely.

Many hurdles need to be overcome - the first being an FDA ruling on Viropharma's stop action petitions. They've filed many since 2006. First petition was against the FDA's new policy of relaxing standards for testing of generic drugs, and later petitions in protest of the FDA's rulings under the FOIA. There are excellent arguments both for and against the new standards as it applies to the testing of a generic vancocin specifically.

If it ends up with a stay of action against the new FDA standard, there won't be many (if any) drug companies lining up eager to produce a generic equivalent. Complying with the older, more rigorous standards makes vancocin ridiculously expensive to test and manufacture... a prospect most companies are unwilling to undertake because of the low revenue return. Yes folks, 240 million in sales is not big peanuts to big pharma if the cost of bringing the drug to market is high. In that respect, vancocin is similar to other antibiotics in that companies simply aren't interested in developing them without incentive because they're mostly low revenue (compared to "lifestyle" drugs which earn them the big profits - in the billions).

Much may depend on the FDA's response to the petitions, and they're taking their time to answer them.

[Bobbie]

A year or so ago, a rep. from Viropharma wanted to interview people from this site. She didn't follow up, however, after I talked to her by phone. Our best "guestimate" is that she wanted testimonials from people who had taken the "real" Vanco.

As far as I know (& I might not be correct), Vancocin is Viropharma's only money producing drug (or was a year or so ago) altho. the rep. said they have several drugs "in the pipeline." When I checked their site at that time, Vanco. seemed to be "it."