Payment settlements keep generics off the market

To offset generic drug competition, brand manufacturers are increasingly offering generic companies million-dollar payments to delay cheaper generic alternatives from reaching the market. In the latest settlement, Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb offered to pay Canadian generic drugmaker Apotex an estimated $40 million to drop its patent challenge and avoid a trial in exchange for delaying introduction of a generic version of the anti-clotting agent clopidogrel (Plavix) until 2011.