Brand drug manufacturers in the United States have developed strategies to thwart generic competition and preserve monopoly profits longer than policymakers intended. In doing so, they cost US patients and healthcare payors billions of dollars. This report focuses on one strategy known as product hopping that brand drug companies use to prevent generic competition and extend their monopoly prices. The analysis presented in this paper finds that just five instances of specific product hops cost the US healthcare system $4.7 billion annually.
