Me-Too Drugs : Good or Bad?

drug that is structurally very similar to already known drugs, with only minor differences. The term "me-too" carries a negative connotation. However, me-too products may create competition and drive prices down1.The majority of the new products the industry puts out, are “me-too” drugs, which are almost identical to current treatments but “no better than drugs already on the market to treat the same condition.” Around 75 percent of new drugs approved by the FDA are me-too drugs. They can be less effective than current drugs, but as long as they’re more effective than a placebo, they can get the regulatory green light2. This isn’t surprising at all, as someone who works in the field, but these so-called “me-too” drugs, which are reportedly better than their forebears, is driving costs. A “me-too” drug is a drug that has its origins in another drug. Probably the most famous example of this is Prilosec (“The Purple Pill”) and Nexium (“Today’s Purple Pill”). Prilosec’s active ingredient is omeprazole. Nexium’s active ingredient is called esomeprazole. The difference is that Nexium is the left-handed version of omeprazole. In chemistry, S stands for sinister, which means the molecular conformation has a left-handed orientation. (D would be right handed.) So this S-omeprazole is one half of the mixture that comprises its predecessor. By specifically picking only the S conformation, the drug is made more potent. This sounds great, but its efficacy is only marginally better than Prilosec-, which has a generic version, and costs about a third less than Nexium. Some other “me-too” drugs are: Claritin (loratidine) and Clarinex (desloratidine), Celexa (citalopram) and Lexapro (escitalopram)3.