Luxury Line of Generics

Friends, possibly Romans, and countrymen,

Very recently, Valtrex turned generic. The days of paying $250 for your 'cold sore' medicine are over! Hail the days of paying only $200 for it. Expensive drugs rarely drop precipitously during the first 6 months of going generic. It usually takes a second generic manufacturer to start making the stuff for people to start seeing a real price drop, and even then it's still in the hundreds. All are cash prices, btw.

One person was more than happy to support the decrease in U.S. healthcare costs ('generics are great'), while another chose to 'stick with what I'm already taking.' That's understandable: it recently went generic, and maybe they might find some stuff wrong with it. Who knows? I don't blame her much.

What was outrageous was someone asking for the 'real stuff' on an antibiotic which has been generic for hundreds of years (okay, maybe 20-30 years; it's not as old as penicillin, but it might as well be.) I didn't even know the brand name of the thing.

In my relatively brief stint as a real druggist*, I've noticed one particular generic manufacturer with the iconic 'GG' label on a vast majority of their meds. I didn't know that Gucci made generics! I wonder if 'GG' had made that particular antibiotic, would that person have taken it. Another question which shall forever remain unanswered; it will remain up in the pantheon of the chicken or the egg debate.

'I don't have the brand, sir, but I do have the luxury line of generics. Some would say it may be even better than the original. There's even a rock song about it**.'

Want to take a guess at who's rocking the Gucci label? Answer below.

-g
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*old school for 'pharmacist'
**Girl Named Sandoz