More like no one bothered to apply to make it OTC until a year ago. In the US there is more money to be made from selling prescription medication.
I'm just saying generic prescription drugs don't necessarily have a huge price uplift vs. OTC.
Price competition across pharmacies is far higher (due to low insurance reimbursement) than cash paying patients.
Once the drugs move out of patent, that doesn't mean it is automatically approved for OTC sale. A drug maker can look at getting FDA approval for making it OTC. But it costs time and money to do so, with no guarantee of success. In the case of Norgestrel it took until now before any drug maker thought it would be worth pursuing.
Of course. Drugs that are approved for OTC are almost always generic by that time.
Most often drug companies look to get approval as prescription, because that is more profitable for patented drugs.
No, it's not approved as prescription because it's more profitable, it's approved as prescription because that's all the FDA allows. The safety requirements for OTC are far stricter than prescription. Most patented drugs could never become OTC, ever.
In the case of Norgestrel it took until now before any drug maker thought it would be worth pursuing.
Norgestrel is a generic. All birth control pills pretty much are. The hormones can be in different combinations or formulations, but generally they are all generic components.
So my point stands, it's often more profitable to be OTC than prescription.