Brand-Name Drug Makers Bet Coupons Will Help Their Products Edge Out Generic Competition
The Associated Press/Wall Street Journal: New Coupons Aim To Keep People Off Generic Drugs
If brand-name prescription medicines cost you as little as generic pills, which would you choose? A few drugmakers are betting Americans will stick with the name they know. They've begun offering U.S. patients coupons to reduce copayments on brand-name medicines and compete with new generic versions of the drugs. The medicines include staples in the American medicine cabinet — cholesterol fighter Lipitor, blood thinner Plavix and blood pressure drug Diovan — along with drugs for depression and breast cancer (8/20).