“Me Too” Drugs and How they Affect Healthcare
In today’s prescription-drug marketplace competition is stiff for essentially the same population of patients. Only a fraction of the drugs seeking new drug approval offer a clear advantage of what is already on the market. Many of the other drugs are considered “me too” drugs because they are similar to those already on the market.
Examples of these drugs occur in many therapeutic classes- antidepressants, nonsteroidal antiimflammatory drugs, antiulcers drugs, osteoporosis drugs, etc.
Victory in these therapeutic- class wars can mean millions of dollars for a drug company. But for patients and providers it can mean misleading promotions, conflict of interests and increased cost for healthcare and sometime inappropriate prescribing. Read more about this in the New England Journal of Medicine.