Effects of Competition on Drug-Product Selection

To the Editor: Three flaws in the study by Kralewski et al. (July 28 issue) 1 render its hypotheses questionable, reduce the internal and external validity, and do not permit the data to support the conclusions drawn. First of all, the study is based on the notion that pharmacists' drug-product...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe New England journal of medicine Vol. 309; no. 25; pp. 1585 - 1587
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Massachusetts Medical Society 22.12.1983
Subjects
Economic Competition
Economics
Humans
Pharmaceutical Preparations
Pharmacists
United States
United States
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Summary:To the Editor: Three flaws in the study by Kralewski et al. (July 28 issue) 1 render its hypotheses questionable, reduce the internal and external validity, and do not permit the data to support the conclusions drawn. First of all, the study is based on the notion that pharmacists' drug-product–selection behaviors can be explained by using two categories of drugs: "generic drug products" and "brand-name drug products." Such a classification is neither logical nor definitive. A useful classification, permitting meaningful comparisons, identifies each drug entity as containing single-source or multiple-source drug products. Single-source drug products are so classified because they are . . .
Bibliography:SourceType-Other Sources-1
content type line 63
ObjectType-Correspondence-1
ISSN:0028-4793
1533-4406
DOI:10.1056/NEJM198312223092519