Patients' Drug Options Under Medicaid Heavily Influenced by Drugmakers

Most of these drugs are just expensive patent medicines.

> Since Ramadan joined the committee, the drugs Invega Sustenna and Abilify Maintena have always made the preferred list.

These two drugs are atypical antipsychotics. They are palliative drugs that are prescribed to hopefully prevent patients from further deterioration, but experience has shown they don't work very well [0].

Abilify's patent expired in 2014. Ability Maintena is a still-patented injected form of this drug that sells for $1000/injection.

Injected drugs of this class are used because patients don't appreciate Abilify's side effects (compulsive behavior, etc). When a court orders people to submit to their psychiatrist, the doctor doesn't have to care if the patient is actually being helped by their forced treatment.

[0] https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/07/new-research-suggests-b...