For years, big drugmakers have been waging a war against patient access to affordable generic drugs.

This fight against generics is part and parcel of its multi-million-dollar campaign to tarnish the reputation of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). After all, PBMs are highly effective at using generic drug competition to drive down prices for patients, employers, unions, and government programs.

Right now, Big Pharma is running an advertising campaign that lays bare that its goal is to prevent patients and providers from considering lower cost drugs that are therapeutically equivalent to the brand ones that come with huge price tags.

Not surprisingly, the new campaign uses the Big Pharma hallmarks of tortured statistics, distorted definitions, and wildly overstated conclusions

It must be understood when confronted with any of their ads: big drugmakers have no interest in competition or giving patients low-cost options, and they will try to dupe policymakers with impunity to keep drug prices high.

We’re going to start exposing their strategy.

Setting the Record Straight: To start, the new ad cherry-picks expensive brand name drugs and conflates routine coverage reviews with denials – two very different things. But Big Pharma thinks it can slip that right past you.

Of course, if this kind of study was run for all prescriptions, including generics, the number would be dramatically lower. And then, the campaign conveniently buries the fact that most of those prescriptions are ultimately approved.

So, what’s going on here? When a formulary doesn’t include an expensive brand-name drug, it’s generally because lower cost options are available. PBMs encourage generics and biosimilars over more expensive brand drugs because they are safe, effective, and dramatically more affordable. Policymakers have said they want MORE access to generic drugs. Which is why Big Pharma is running this campaign. They’re scared of competition.

PBMs work with employers, labor unions, and government programs (who always make the final decisions) to create formularies that put safety first and make prescription drugs more affordable. In some cases, a generic drug costs 95% less than the reference brand name drug. That’s how a $1,000 drug becomes a $10 copay.

The Big Pharma strategy for its War on Generics entails spending millions on high profile campaigns that blame others for high drug prices. At the same time, while flashy campaigns take up all the oxygen, drug manufacturers are running non-stop patent abuse schemes that blunt generics and biosimilars from entering the market and displacing expensive brand drugs.

Always in search of a new gravy train via the policymaking front, the latest Big Pharma campaign will intensify – using the War on Generics strategy. Make no mistake, the objective is to protect and enhance the profits from high-cost brand drugs.