Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom

In Hopewell, New Jersey, in the fall of 2001, Dinesh S. Thakur was the director of discovery informatics at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), a pharmaceutical company. Thakur met Rashmi Barbhaiya, a senior executive at BMS. Barbhaiya informed Thakur that he was planning to leave BMS to become the research and development director at generic drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories, India’s largest drug company. Barbhaiya asked if Thakur wanted to join him at Ranbaxy.

Thakur faced a choice between two different paths. On the one hand, BMS had paid for years of Thakur’s education and training, and he was well-respected there. At BMS, Thakur worked on innovative drugs, whereas generic drug companies generally focused on replicating already-existing drugs. However, the generic drug industry was experiencing rapid growth, and many patents for brand-name drugs were expiring, opening up opportunities for generic drug manufacturers like Ranbaxy. Moreover, Ranbaxy planned to create new drugs, not just copy existing ones.

Eban describes the difference between the goals of name-brand pharmaceutical companies like BMS and generic drug manufacturers like Ranbaxy. Name-brand companies seek to make “the best possible drugs for [the] highest possible price,” whereas generic drug companies want to make “the best cures affordable and available to all” (12).