How a Supreme Court fight over fish oil could raise your prescription drug costs

sinceLF/iStockphoto/ The United States pays undeniably high prices for brand-name drugs. But when it comes to generics — the cheaper copycat medicines that now fill nine out of every 10 prescriptions in America — the country gets a very good deal. Americans pay less, on average, for generic medications than people in any other peer nation. But the wait for those savings can be long, with some brand-name monopolies lasting decades before a generic can hit the market. That wait could get longer — depending on the outcome of a case the Supreme Court is hearing Wednesday. What's this legal fight all about? The case — Hikma v. Amarin — pits the generic drugmaker Hikma against Amarin, the maker of Vascepa, a brand-name drug made from purified fish oil for people at high risk of heart disease. The companies' dispute centers on a strategy known as "skinny labeling," which is used by generic firms to bring cheaper medications to market more quickly. When a brand-name drugmaker loses its patents on some — but not all — uses of a medication, generic competitors can snag a skinny label approval from the FDA. This allows companies to begin selling their cheaper version of the medicine — just for those unpatented uses. This shortcut can help firms avoid expensive patent litigation and deliver lower prices for patients and insurers sooner. …