NJ Star-Ledger | It's Hard to Beat Generic as Drugs Come Off Patent, Major Firms Feel Pinch

. . . Len Nichols, director of health policy for the New America Foundation, said with many big revenue producers going generic and the innovative pipeline of breakthrough pharmaceuticals slowing, the major drugmakers are feeling the pinch.

"The question for the longer run is how we balance the desire to pay as little as possible for our medicines while still providing the incentives for drugmakers to innovate new compounds that might enhance clinical value and improve the public health going forward," Nichols said.

"Historically, the pharmaceutical companies used very high prices from their monopoly drugs to finance research and development," he said. . .