Doctors’ preference for branded version of cholesterol drug costs US healthcare system $700m a year, study shows

Doctors are too easily persuaded to continue prescribing branded drugs by marketing strategies designed to ensure that they do not switch to cheaper generic versions, a new study says.

Yale University researchers cite Abbott’s marketing of its blockbuster cholesterol lowering drug fenofibrate as a key example of a company’s techniques to extend a drug patent. The first formulation of the drug, which is marketed in the United States as TriCor, came off patent in 2002, but the introduction of new formulations allowed a version of it to remain on patent until 2011.

“This continued use of branded formulations, which cost twice as much as generic versions of fenofibrate, imposes an annual cost of …