Morning Read: Good times for generic drugmakers

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:

Good times for generic drugmakers: Sales of prescription drugs in the U.S. rose about 5 percent last year–weak growth by historical levels, but still not too shabby considering many Americans were more worried about losing their homes and their jobs than filling prescriptions. Overall, sales reached $300 billion in 2009, according to IMS Health, a provider of drug data. But a look inside the data shows why now is a great time to be a generic pharmaceuticals firm, and why Big Pharma executives are likely losing a little sleep these days. The total number of generics dispensed jumped 5.9 percent, but brand-name dispensations fell 7.6 percent. In more bad news for Big Pharma, generics accounted for 75 percent of all sales, up from 57 percent just five years ago.

For a number of years, brand-name drugmakers have been losing ground to generics as patent protections expire. While that’s inevitable and simply a matter of timing, what has to be more troubling to brand-name firms is their continuing struggles to develop blockbuster drugs like they have in decades past. Big Pharma has tried to counteract this with a number of mergers in recent years, but there’s only so much consolidation one industry can do.

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There was at least one positive note for Big Pharma: The No. 1 selling drug remains Pfizer’s cholesterol drug Lipitor, though sales fell just a bit from the year before.

Will Republicans regret health-reform obstructionism? That’s what some top GOP lawmakers are starting to worry about, the Associated Press reports. If voters, start to see some benefits from health reform, the party of “Hell no!” may not look too good to voters in November, the logic goes. Oh, really? A party that put naked political ambition over policies that could actually help a good number of its constituents could end up paying for it? A party that rejected a health proposal that was largely the same as the one it put forth itself about 15 years ago could maybe look a little hypocritical? A party that showed no willingness whatsoever to work in good faith on a law that will reduce the deficit, end a number of insurance company abuses and make a huge difference in the lives of 32 million previously unisured Americans might not have won too many new fans? Shocking, utterly shocking.

But good news for Republicans: Since 1934, 12 first-term presidents have been in office for mid-term elections. Of those 12, only two saw their parties gain seats in Congress. Bottom line: No matter how badly Republicans screwed up and sullied their image during the health-reform debates, chances are they’ll come out winners in November–though perhaps not as much as they would’ve had they made any substantive effort to work with the other side of the aisle.

A chicken in every pot, and an iPad for every med student: With the iPad’s imminent debut coming on Saturday, a nation hungrily awaits its latest “god machine” from tech luminary Steve Jobs. Dr. Joseph Kim takes the opportunity to stump for “mandatory” iPads for med students as a means of enhancing learning. There have been so many breathless, almost-hysterical hyberbolic pronouncements about how the device will change everything, it’s hard to know what to expect from the iPad at this point. It looks like a huge win for gamers and e-book enthusiasts, but if you don’t fall into either of those categories, its value is less apparent. Nonetheless, it will be fascinating to watch how–or if–health providers use the device to change how they interact with patients, record clinical data and maybe even use the technology to cut costs and boost efficiency. That could be the real value to the rest of us, but it may take awhile before that value becomes apparent.