CALIFORNIA: GENERIC DRUG BILL FAILS IN SENATE COMMITTEE
A California legislative committee "defeated a bill thatThis is part of the California Healthline Daily Edition, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
would have made the substitution of less costly generic drugs
more difficult," LOS ANGELES TIMES reports. The measure would
have required generic versions of medications classified as
"narrow therapeutic index" -- "drugs for which the margins of
tolerance are so narrow that too large a dose can be lethal while
too small a dose can be wholly ineffective" -- to have undergone
"rigorous testing by the California Department of Health
Services." It would also have prevented pharmacists from
substituting "generic narrow therapeutic index drugs for name-
brand drugs without the consent of physicians and patients."
The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Hilda Solis (D), failed on a
4-0 vote in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
Solis, who tried to push the bill through with a last-minute
compromise, "said she would revive the bill next week" (Ingram,
5/15).