A generic was approved by the FDA last week. How long does it typically take from approval to retail? Inquiring wallets want to know.
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Interesting, I’d suspect soon from the compounding pharmacies.
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That’s what I was hoping!
This is the first I’ve heard of this - is it for Equiox too?
Compounded is absolutely NOT generic.
Here’s how generic meds work:
Here’s the presser for the generic firocoxib. It’s licensed for dogs only, and a Norbrook Lab product.
IIRC, the first company to launch a generic has price protection for a period of time, so I’d not expect the cost to be any less, at least not at first.
Norbrook has zero info about this that I could find, so it may be a bit before they actually bring it to market.
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No, but from what I understand they can make them without getting sued now.
(I just had a very expensive medication compounded because it was no longer under patent. Saved me about a grand)
Without looking, so I might be wrong, I think the Equiox patent came after Previcox… so no, even though they are exactly the same. 
No…that’s not what compounding is all about.
This covers it pretty well:
“Compounding pharmacies can customize commercial, name brand medications and generic ones in order to provide patients with personalized treatment. They do not create exact copies of commercially available medications, which is forbidden by law. Instead, they provide patients with modified forms as needed.”
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Any approved drug can legally be compounded if it’s deemed that the horse must have a different dose, or formulation (paste, liquid, pill, etc) or carrier (because one horse might be allergic to a carrier ingredient in the approved version) than what the approved drug comes in.
The drug is the same (firocoxib) and yes, Equioxx is newer than Previcox.
All horses used to be prescribed Previcox because there wasn’t an equine-approved alternative.
The difference is that P comes in 57mg and 227mg pills. Originally Equioxx came in only 57mg paste, and at that point, it became illegal to Rx the P version to horses. THEN, E came in 57mg tablets, which are pretty identical in cost to the 57mg P tablets (which makes total sense, it IS the same same)
What? No. We used previcoxx because the horse version was a single dose paste that was ten bucks a tube! Previcox doesn’t predate Equioxx.
Equioxx and Previcox have the same patent expire date.
Yes, I haven’t priced it in a while. One of my retirees (who is 11, sigh) needs at least 1/2 of a 227mg tablet to be flatwork sound. I gave up on that a few years ago, as it just wasn’t that beneficial to either of us at the time to try to keep him going. He is pasture sound without, but I thought he might appreciate a little bit of a job at this point. Back then the cost of a double dose of Equiox was not very palatable.
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Equioxx paste was approved in Dec 30, 2005 according to [this]
(https://animaldrugsatfda.fda.gov/adafda/app/search/public/document/downloadFoi/805)
Previcox was approved July 21, 2004
This lists both:
P on July 21, 2004
E on Dec 30, 2005
And until Equioxx pills were approved, it was still legal to Rx Previcox under the guise of “this horse requires a pill form, not paste”
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I can imagine 
The last I looked, both 57mg pills were about $.75 each. Of course the 227mg pill is cheaper on a per-57mg dose which is why a lot of people still work around the law with their dog or “dog” getting the Rx. And still, there are vets who actively write scrips for P for horses, not caring that it’s illegal, but also highly unlikely to be dinged for it.
But that doesn’t mean Previcox hit the market at that point. Here’s the presser for the Previcox launch:
Dated June 1 2005.
Regardless, it’s not like horse people saw a new canine COX-2 inhibitor hit the market and had a lightbulb moment to use it on their horses, before Merial launched the Equioxx paste for horses. We were all using Previcox because the same drug was out there for horses, as a paste, and at a pretty hefty cost.
It was never
It was that the horse version was SPENDY and the dog version wasn’t. Prescribing Previcox was kind of grey area for horses–some vets would, some wouldn’t–until Equioxx was released in a tablet, which happened in Oct 2016, and then (nearly?) all of them moved their Previcox patients to Equioxx tabs…
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