With new drugs being developed, many health conditions and illnesses now have better treatments. New drugs are expensive, however, due to the all of the money spent on clinical trials and testing. Patients can sometimes save money with generics, but they are becoming hard to develop. The FDA oversees pharmaceutical companies that manufacture brand-name drugs because before a generic drug can be put on the market, it has to be compared to the brand name drug and bioequivalence studies have to be performed. Makers of generics depend on a supply of the original drug being available for them to compare versions, but some companies are making it difficult, if not nearly impossible to get samples of brand-name drugs for comparison to generics.
The FDA is aware of this and recently issued a list of companies it has had inquiries on. By law, the FDA must investigate any report of companies that are deliberately making their drugs hard to get for generic approval testing. With drug prices higher in the United States than in some other countries, the need for generics in the US market is even more critical.
