Genéricos...SI, pero "Branded generics"

ONE recent evening, the most powerful man in the world posed an existential question to those around him. “If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half the price for the thing that’s going to make you well?” Thus Barack Obama captured one of two powerful global trends forcing pharmaceutical giants to look for a new business model.

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Big drug firms used to turn their noses up at the generics business, but the assault on their profits has forced them to think again. In many rich countries and most poor ones, they are managing to avoid calamitous drops in revenue by peddling “branded” (but not patented) versions of their original drugs for higher prices than unbranded generic equivalents. Illogical though it may seem, such is the power of brand loyalty and inertia among doctors and patients that these branded generics often help the firm losing the patent retain half or more of the market, in value terms, even after generic competition is legally permitted (see chart).

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Several pharmaceutical companies have gone further and bought generic-making rivals. That can speed up a move into branded generics. But most important, it helps drug giants gain better access to emerging markets—one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak outlook for the industry. Jeff George, head of Sandoz, a large generics firm owned by Novartis, a Swiss drugmaker, is convinced that the lure of those growing markets is unleashing an “entirely new dynamic”. According to IMS Health, another consultancy, the seven biggest emerging markets will account for more than half of the industry’s total sales growth this year. By 2012, it reckons, nine of the top 20 markets will be emerging economies. Sandoz recently reported that its sales in the six biggest such markets were 14% higher in the first half than they were a year ago, while sales in Europe edged up by barely 3%.

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