Home delivery pharmacies seen to boost generic use

A General view of the packaging area is seen at the warehouse of a pharmaceutical company, September 20, 2006.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Patients are more likely to choose a money-saving generic drug over more expensive branded medicines when using a home delivery pharmacy instead of a retail drug store, according to a study by Express Scripts Inc.

Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit manager that has a home delivery prescription drug business, said its study showed that a letter alerting consumers to the availability of a cheaper alternative led to significantly greater generic use among those who the utilized home delivery services.

The study involved the popular sleep aid Ambien, sold by Sanofi-Aventis, after a cheaper generic version sold as zolpidem became available last year.

The likelihood of choosing a generic via home delivery was 34 percent greater than by those who filled prescriptions at retail pharmacies, according to the study.

"Financial incentives are important but not enough to realize the full money-saving potential of therapeutically equivalent generics," Emily Cox, a study author and leader of Express Scripts research department, said in a statement.

"Timely communications, in this case immediately after a drug goes generic, need to be coupled with the right financial incentives to increase the number of consumers choosing a generic," Cox said.

Express said alerting consumers about the availability of generic versions of Merck & Co's widely used cholesterol drug Zocor in mid-2006 contributed to a dramatic increase in use of generic statins from 8 percent to 53.2 percent.

The campaign generated more than $600 million in savings in the first year, Express said. It said research showed that the greatest impact came from consumers using home delivery.

The company has estimated that use of generic sleep aids will increase to 70 percent of all sleep aid prescriptions in 2008. A further $1.5 billion in additional savings for commercial and government-paid plans could be achieved if generic sleep aid use reached 95 percent, Express said.

"Billions in savings are at stake when you account for a similar impact in other therapy classes," Cox said.

Increased generic use also helps pad the bottom line of companies like Express Scripts that administer prescription drug benefits for employers and health plans. Generics have a much higher profit margin than expensive branded medicines.

More than 20,000 consumers from over 1,000 Express Scripts clients were included in the generics study.

The alert letters went to consumers who had filled at least one branded sleep aid prescription between the introduction of generic zolpidem on April 23, 2007 and August 15, 2007.

Members were followed for 180 days to determine rates of switching to generics among home delivery customers compared to those who filled prescriptions at retail drug stores.

"The assistance available to home delivery customers led consumers using that channel to respond at a higher level," Cox said.

(Editing by Gary Hill)