Sometimes the fastest way from an NDA to market is to manufacture the combination of two popular drugs into one. Pharma benefits from a new patent; healthplan formularies benefit from aggressive DTC patient marketing, and the patient ostensibly benefits from a better, cheaper alternative. Usually, the combined agent is two drugs — usually taken together for the treatment of some clinical syndrome. Rarely, three drugs may be combined. But, have you heard of four or even five compounds in a single tablet to treat the number one killer in this country — heart disease? Well, study researchers in Canada and India certainly have. Dubbed the “polypill”, the studied drug is composed of a cholesterol agent, aspirin, and three compounds to control blood pressure. Sure, a 5-in-1 pill enhances patient compliance and would be of low cost (as all drugs would be generic). But medicine is as much an art as it is a science, and one drug — no matter how all inclusive it tries to be — is not all things to all people.  | LINK

Two-thousand eight has been dubbed the “year of the generic” pharmaceutical formulation, due — in part — to the increased intensity of the FDA approval process and the fundamental shift in health plan negotiations for price controls, such as that seen in the Medicare Part D pricesetting of drugs.  There now comes more evidence that, among cardiovascular agents, generic formulations of the most commonly used preventive medications are just as effective as their branded counterparts. The meta-analysis was published in this week’s JAMA. | LINK