AARP Hearing Center
Legislation working its way through Congress would deter brand-name pharmaceutical companies from making it more difficult for generic companies to make lower-priced versions of their products and outlaw deals some drugmakers strike to delay the creation of generic medicines.
The Creating and Restoring Equal Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act targets anticompetitive behavior by brand-name drugmakers that inhibits the development of competing generics. This bill has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
A separate measure would end the use of so-called pay-for-delay deals in which brand-name companies pay generic manufacturers to delay launching a lower-priced version of their product.
“AARP has made expanding access to generics one of our federal priorities in our prescription drug campaign,” says Megan O’Reilly, director of AARP’s health and family legislative team. “These bills will remove barriers that have prevented lower-cost generic drugs from entering the market.”
AARP’s Stop Rx Greed campaign promotes four solutions to the escalating prices of prescription drugs: stop price gouging; increase access and affordability of prescription drugs; promote transparency; and close loopholes, such as the ones these two generics bills attack.