Despite Availability of Generic Equivalents, Two-Thirds of Neurologists Will Continue to Prescribe Branded Anti-Epileptic Drugs to Epileps...( However AED Brands Facing Generic Com...),Health

However, AED Brands Facing Generic Competition Will be Dropped or Pushed to Tier Three of Many MCO Formularies, According to a New Report from Decision Resources

WALTHAM, Mass., Jan. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that the willingness of neurologists to prescribe generic anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) varies dramatically by indication, affording branded AEDs protection in the epilepsy market but not in other markets. Despite physicians' misgivings about the generic equivalence of AEDs, 89 percent of surveyed neurologists are willing to prescribe generic AEDs for painful diabetic neuropathy, and 84 percent are willing to prescribe AEDs for migraine prophylaxis. By contrast, only about one-third of neurologists are willing to prescribe generic AEDs for patients with partial onset epilepsy or refractory epilepsy.

The new Physician & Payer Forum report Will Prescribers and Payers Allow Branded AEDs to Stem the Tide of Generics in Epilepsy, Migraine, Neuropathic Pain or Bipolar Disorder? finds that while physicians' determination to resist generic substitution of branded AEDs at the pharmacy level varies hugely by indication, it does not vary as significantly by brand.

"Currently, 54 percent of the neurologists we surveyed specify 'no generic substitution' on prescriptions for GlaxoSmithKline's Lamictal and a similar proportion indicate they will specify the same on prescriptions for other AEDs when generic versions of these agents become available," said Kate Hohenberg, director at Decision Resources. "However, there is an exception, most significantly in epilepsy, for Abbott's Depakote ER. Our survey showed that 79 percent of neurologists will not agree to switch their epilepsy patients from the brand to the
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