Wacky World of Generics: Thalidomide Edition

Even the title has to cause shivers or a good shake of the head. Thalidomide? Generics? The two words don’t belong together: it can’t be possible.

How can thalidomide (the infamous teratogen and source of the crisis that led to the 1962 FDA efficacy amendments) be the source of a debate about generic use? This is not wacky. This should be inconceivable.

But it’s not.

Celgene’s highly successful Thalomid brand of thalidomide, with sales last year just short of $450 million, has passed its tenth year on the market. And it faces a generic challenge from Barr Labs, which has an ANDA pending for the drug’s initial orphan indication, treatment of the cutaneous lesions of erythema nodosum leprosum.

Now, a struggle is developing on the ability of generic companies to replicate the tight risk management program that Celgene developed to make thalidomide a commercial product.

To get Thalomid to the market, Celgene developed a strictly controlled distribution and patient contact /education program called STEPS. The company devotes more than 175 employees to maintain its risk management programs. The program is so important to the commercial use of the product that Celgene has a patent on the program itself.

STEPS may represent a steep barrier to generic copies; at least that is what Celgene hopes. The company has laid out its arguments against FDA approving generics in a petition filed with the agency a year ago: Sept. 20, 2007. (For an anlysis of the Celgene petition, see our coverage in “The Pink Sheet.")

FDA’s eventual decision as to whether the thalidomide risk management program can be copied or mimicked will be of major significance to the entire industry.

As FDA begins to require more risk management programs (now called REMS – Risk Evaluation & Mitigation Systems) as integral parts of NDA approvals, these post-market controls have the potential to significantly lengthen the life of brands.

Or as Celgene pointedly argues to FDA: "In many ways, the survival of the company depends on the successful implementation of its novel restricted distribution plans." Give away its risk management program to another marketer and FDA will give away the core of Celgene’s ability to market thalidomide safely. The company notes that it has successfully prevented patients from experiencing the horrors of the teratogen. If another company is distributing the ingredient less carefully, it would hurt the public, the drug industry and Celgene’s brand.

But FDA was specifically instructed in the FDA Amendments Act (passed a year ago in September 2007) to prevent companies from using REMS as barriers to generic competition. Something is going to have to give.

The decision on STEPS will be one of the important early precedents arising from FDAAA. It is significant that Celgene used ex-FDA general counsel Dan Troy to craft its arguments to protect STEPS and Thalomid.

Not only is Troy a prominent figure on the issue of FDA’s ability to control industry marketing practices, he has also recently become the general counsel of GlaxoSmithKline – assuring that the issue of the value of REMS as a way to block generics will get the attention of at least one other major pharma player. Indeed, GSK has been--by accident if not design--one of the most active early players in shaping how the REMS authority will be used, having already agreed to three programs for its new products, and with a fourth pending for Promacta.

In the wacky future world of generics, companies will have to learn how to replicate post-marketing control programs as well as how to replicate the chemical structures. The safety programs may turn out to be harder to copy.