Delaying Generic Drugs

from WSJ.com: Health Blog by Jacob Goldstein

The heat is closing in on the drug indsutry’s practice of paying generic manufacturers to delay competition for branded drugs.

Companies say the practice is legal. But the U.S. Department of Justice took a skeptical view when it weighed in Monday on a pending case brought by CVS and Rite Aid. The drug stores (which make higher margins on generics) challenged a deal in which Bayer paid Barr to delay producing a generic version of the antibiotic Cipro. Here’s more on the case from Dow Jones Newswires.