It's important to realize that if you don't have health insurance that covers a good portion of Suboxone, you will probably find that it is cheaper to get Suboxone on the street than it is from a pharmacy. Most prices in the 2009 Price Thread for Suboxone are much better than what it costs for a Suboxone prescription without any insurance coverage.
I am with Staff Writer - I hope the generic is cheaper. If anyone can find out the formulation for this, it would be interesting to see.
I do know the binders used are talc and not cornstarch like the branded product. Before it was granted approval, Reckitt Benkiser (sp?) sent the FDA a citizen petition in hopes of holding it up, in the petition the main concern they held as reason to hold up the generic was:
"The concern is the presents of talc, a binding agent used instead of the more expensive cornstarch process used by the branded product. Their concern is that when misused by injection or inhalation the talc which is a mineral and not biodegradable, like cornstarch, can cause severe complications and in some cases death."
The fda shot them down:
Here’s some of the FDA’s response to the petition.
“Subutex and Suboxone have combined labeling, as they are intended to be used in sequence by patients. The labeling of Subutex and Suboxone instructs prescribers to initiate treatment with supervised administration . The labeling makes clear that Subutex, which does not contain naloxone, should be limited to supervised use wherever possible As patients progress, Suboxone is intended to be prescribed for take-home use in appropriately limited quantities .”
Not sure if that was the type of info you where after or not but either way makes for interesting reading I guess and that was as far as Reckitt was willing to take it.
As far as Suboxone goes, what I have heard is....
"it is very difficult to manufacture buprenorphine/naloxone combination tablets with the same and consistent absorption characteristics as the branded product, so there will not be a Suboxone generic next week. Because of the difficulties in manufacturing its possible generic companies might find it cost prohibitive to pursue it, or the generics may not cost much less than the brand name."
So it is quite possible a generic Subutex will be as good as it gets and/or as cheap as it gets. So I would expect many doctors to just switch those with finacial difficulties to a Subutex generic, at least until a Suboxone generic comes, if it all.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
