4 December 2018 - How a generic drug is priced may be the difference between whether it experiences a shortage or not, a new study published in Value in Health found.

The study of commonly used outpatient generic drugs from 2008 to 2014 found that the prevalence of shortages decreased from a peak in 2011-2012 to less than 4% of the overall sample by the end of 2014.

Generic drug prices “were strongly predictive of drug shortages,” the researchers found. But competition and market size were not associated with the likelihood of a shortage, the authors from Harvard’s Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, And Law (PORTAL) and the University of Utah found. So why are higher-priced generics less likely to experience a shortage?

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