What does it mean Si?
Is there a generic buprenorphine we can now prescribe?
Cheers
Simon

Hi Simon,
ClaireB sent me this so all thanks to her. I guess we need to wait for prices and it looks like soon we will have a generic product.
I guess the manufacturers may need to revise the prices of the branded Subutex and Suboxone.

I have just spoken to the company it's due out in September and they haven't worked out the price yet but it will be at least 30% less than Subutex.

Great.
Thanks Si.
Simon

If that turns out to be right, it is excellent news. (shhh... don't tell the people who set our prescribing budget, but we may manage an underspend next year)

It sounds as if our excitment at the end of the Subutex patent is at last about to be justified.

Might be thought rather a sad thing to get so excited about perhaps. Hopefully our Olympic athletes will also keep getting medals, to broaden our horizons..

Don't get your hopes up.
It all depends on what the Drug Tarif fixes the price of generic buprenophine at. It often appears to have little to do with the price actually paid.

Jeff

I have hopes that within approx 3 months the Drug Tariff will have sorted itself out... it managed to work out a way that it cost pharmacists to dispense some scripts this year.. not in substance miuse

One of our Pharmacists has generic Buprenorphine in his shop now! He reports it's a couple of pound cheaper.

Oh dear the new Buprenorphine 8mg tablets are tiny about the size of Subutex 2mg a Pharmacist dispensed them in error when he had prescribed Subutex.
The patient reports they aren't nearly as good due to being so small!!
Please if prescribing generically let people know that they are much smaller.

Might that not mean they dissolve more quickly?

quote:

Originally posted by susi:
Might that not mean they dissolve more quickly?

It might or it might mean less to snort ( For some).
I think i'll tell people that they are more concentrated, that might be a good plan.

they have arrived in birmingham. I will ring a few pharmacists and see what reports they are getting back. One patient came today and asked me to prescribe "subutex" instead, because the pharmacist had told him that is the only way to get the "proper " tablets, so as you say we will need to do a selling job i think.

More concentrated is good.

This is a great news, but have you some information about buprenorphine generic also in Italy? Thanks, Rob

Doctor Rob as far as I know the Arrow pharmaceuticals one is only licenced for the UK. I can't say that it's very cheap either.

As many will know, I am a big fan of generic prescribing, once patents have run their course, and hope gradually this will bring buprenorphine prices down for the tax payers and so that our drug budgets can stretch further. I understand at present the new make costs about the same as the original "subutex" but as we prescribe more of it, one or the other will reduce their prices (in the same way as the makers of Ventolin have now made it cheaper than the generic salbutamol)

I do think it is a shame that the new makers made their 2mg tab the same size as their 8mg tab (differentiated only by markings on the white tabs) . i think any of us could have advised them against this. maybe they can change it eventually? I had one person who I prescribed 12 mgs daily (8mg +2x2mg) and he came back to the surgery thinking I had underprescribed and given him only 6mg (3x2mg) . He pulled the box out to show me and I had to admit it was only when we studied them carefully that I was able to reassure him that he did in fact have 12mg.

Thanks for the answer Simon, someone tell me that it's not Arrow but Teva or someone else company will distribute buprenorphine generic in Italy, next year... I don't know... bye Rob