The same molecule costs $50 or $1,500 depending on the label on the vial (kcl.ac.uk)
King's College London found that hospitals and universities run late-stage clinical trials of off-patent drugs at less than 10% of what pharma spends — because once a drug goes generic, companies stop bothering to find new uses for it.
The thread's most useful voice works with ophthalmologists and named the textbook case: Avastin (≈$50/dose) and Lucentis (≈$1,500/dose) are the same molecule. The catch is that the cheap version isn't packaged for the eye, and at least one doctor in the story cultured live bacteria from a compounded batch.
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