The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7221 p597
26 October 2002

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News summary

US acts to promote generic competition

Regulations are to be introduced in the United States to make it harder for pharmaceutical companies to hinder generic competition when patents expire.

Companies are to be stopped from launching successive patent protection law suits over minor changes to their products. Instead, they are to be restricted to a single 30-month stay of a generic medicine application while all challenges are contested.

President Bush expects that the change will save $3bn a year in drug costs.