#71 - Katherine Eban: Widespread fraud in the generic drug industry

In this episode, Katherine Eban, investigative journalist and author of Bottle of Lies, illuminates the prevalence of fraud in generic drug manufacturing which brings into question the idea that generics are identical to brand-name drug as we are lead to believe. Katherine walks us through how this widespread corruption came to be, including the shocking story of one particularly egregious (and unfortunately not uncommon) example of an Indian drug company, Ranbaxy, whose business model was completely dependent on falsifying data in their drug applications to the FDA. We then discuss the subsequent investigation into Indian and Chinese drug manufacturing plants which revealed that nearly 80% of them are tainted with fraud. We conclude this discussion on a positive note with i) how individuals can investigate their own drugs to protect themselves ii) an innovative pharmacy attempting to disrupt the market and iii) some ideas on how to reform to the regulations around generic drugs, the FDA, and more.   We discuss: How Peter found Katherine's book, and what convinced her to investigate the generic drug industry [5:45]; Branded vs. generic drugs: Why they aren't the same thing [11:15]; The Food and Drug Administration: Why it was originally created and what it does today [20:45]; How the generic drug industry really got its start in the U.S., and the flaw of the Hatch-Waxman Act [28:20]; PEPFAR: How a well-intentioned plan to help Africa with the AIDS epidemic laid the groundwork for corruption [36:30]; The story of Ranbaxy: An Indian drug company whose business model was fraud and deceit [40:45]; How the FDA approves drugs, the impact of "first to file", and Peter's tangent on moral corruption [47:30]; A booming generic drug market and the FDA struggling to keep up [57:15]; Dinesh's internal investigation finds widespread fraud and falsified data inside Ranbaxy [1:00:15]; Presenting the famous SAR document to Ranbaxy's board of directors which spells out the company-w