Market Insight - Antidepressants: life cycle management to the rescue?
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Life cycle management approaches include the development of new formulations of drugs (for example, advanced delivery systems, metabolites or isomers) in order to improve the clinical performance and extend the patent life of well established drugs. In today's cost-containment environment, however, payers and physicians are challenging this strategy by asking tougher questions, such as ‘is the new drug superior to its predecessor?" and ‘if there is a benefit, is it marginal, or is it large enough to justify a significantly higher price, when compared with all prescription antidepressants?'