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| 24 January 2012
UK Edition |
 Dear Reader,
It really must be the saddest day in the life of a Big Pharma bigwig: the day a beloved money machine drug goes generic.
Drug companies can only rake in the cash for their big name drugs for so long. At some point, all good things must end — and all patents must run out.
That's when generic copies of drugs hit the shelves, killing the Big Pharma hold on the market and making cheaper alternatives available to consumers. Which isn't a bad thing for consumers — but is a terrible thing for those big-name drug manufacturers.
It just breaks your heart, doesn't it?
Luckily, there are a few ways drug companies can squeeze some more life (and money) out of their top sellers.
For example, they might slightly tweak the dose. Or turn a lotion into an ointment. Or they might give the drug a new name and purpose and send it back into the wild as a "new" drug. In 2001, the patent for Prozac expired, leading to a loss of more than 70 per cent of the drug's sales in just two months. Eli Lilly scrambled to breathe new life into Prozac by giving it a new target — severe PMS — and a girly new name — Sarafem.
Or they might do what drug maker Warner Chilcott did when the time came for the acne drug Doryx to go generic. The bigwigs at Warner Chilcott didn't mess around with new names or new indications. They went for a much simpler tactic.
They added a line.
Yep, that's it. They added a second score to the tablets, supposedly making it easier to divide them into thirds. If the FDA bites, generic versions will have to undergo the same change—which translates into the delay Warner Chilcott so desperately desires.
This could be the first time adding a line to a tablet delays competition from generics. They even made up a nice little story to go along with the added score. Rationalizing this change, which in no way alters the formula of the drug, representatives of the company claim that approving generic forms of the drug that have just one score line could be a matter of "public health." They say a doctor might want a patient to divide the tablet into thirds, but that having only one score on a generic tablet would make this difficult.
Now, I don't know about you, but I find that kind of puzzling. I mean, they've been selling the one-score version for years without making a peep about any of these "public health concerns." It sure is odd that they're suddenly so concerned. Hmm... what could it mean?
Here's a hint: Doryx made the company $172.6 million last year. Of course, we see through their little ploy.
If regulators go for the Big Pharma song and dance, what does it mean for generic drugs in general? Will holding up affordable medications be as simple as adding a line to a pill and coming up with some tall tale about public safety?
Unfortunately, I'm not feeling too optimistic.
Continues below...
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High weight, low energy
Q: Ever since being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last year, I've been trying to manage my blood sugar naturally. I'm having a hard time losing weight, though, and just don't have the energy for exercise. My doctor suspected my thyroid, but the tests were normal. What could explain my situation?
Dr Jonathan V. Wright: Low energy levels and difficult weight control are two of the most common complaints among people suffering from diabetes. Since these are also symptoms of weak thyroid function, doctors often run blood tests for thyroid hormones. Most frequently, these tests come back within the normal range, and nothing further is done in this direction.
But some carefully done research indicates that these tests may not be telling you — or your doctor — the whole story. Actually, in diabetics, blood tests for thyroid hormones only indicate how much thyroid hormone there is in the blood. In diabetics, blood hormone levels, which are found outside of cells, may have nothing at all to do with levels of thyroid hormone inside of body cells, which is where thyroid hormones do most of their "work."
There are two major thyroid hormones, usually called thyroxine or T4, which contains four iodide molecules, and tri-iodothyronine, or T3, which contains three. T4 is considerably less active than T3. So the more T3 there is in your body, the more energy you have and the better weight control you can achieve.
But the large majority of circulating thyroid hormone is T4. Your body cells use T4 to create T3 through a process called de-iodination, which just means subtraction of one iodide from T4 so that it becomes T3. According to the study I mentioned above, this process is much less efficient in diabetics than it is in normal, healthy individuals.
So how can you and your doctor determine if there's not enough T3 in your body's cells?
There's no magical solution: The only way to know is to try T3 and observe what happens. You'll definitely need a doctor's help with this, though, since bio-identical T3 is available only by prescription. It's also much easier to experience symptoms of overdose when you're just using T3 than it is with whole thyroid extract.
In the majority of diabetics, prescription T3 improves energy levels and helps weight control, and does so more effectively than "whole" thyroid, (which is one of the few exceptions to the general natural medicine rule of using whole, natural thyroid extract with all the thyroid hormones in their natural proportions). But this is one of those very special circumstances where using the whole extract simply won't help, since your body can't use the T4 it contains.
Of course, as with any other treatment, it sometimes does nothing. But there's no way to predict in advance. So you may want to talk to your doctor about trying this approach. There's a good chance you'll be glad you did.
Bear in mind we are not addressing anyone's personal situation and you should rely on this for informational purposes only. Please consult with your own physician before acting on any recommendations contained herein.
Wishing you the best of health,
Andrew Miller
UK Editor
Nutrition and Healing
P.S. In the latest issue of Nutrition & Healing, Dr. Wright will tell you how treating the most overlooked factor in heart health can reduce your risk of heart attack by 88%... You'll also learn about the human genetic defect that makes supplementing with vitamin C vitally important...PLUS, if you're suffering from diabetes and high cholesterol, we'll tell you all about Nature's cheaper, more effective alternative to the mainstream's latest, side-effect ridden 'blockbuster' drug.
All new members who sign up will receive important updates like these in addition to receiving Dr. Wright's 7 Volume Library of Natural Healing.
Read here for full details.
Sources:
"Drug Maker's Ploy to Delay Generics: Add a Line to Pill," Wall Street Journal (online.wsj.com)
"Pharma Overview," Chemical and Engineering News (pubs.acs.org/cen)
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