Every year, people spend hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars on medication for their pets.  And unlike the drugs they buy for their own use, these pet owners have a harder time finding lower-cost generic versions of drugs their vets prescribe for Fido or Tigger. In fact, 86 percent of pet drugs have no generic equivalent. So pet pharmaceutical companies, like Portland-based Putney, Inc., have been marketing human generic drugs for vets to prescribe.  More recently, however, the company introduced its first generic drug approved for pets by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. CEO Jean Hoffman spoke with Josie Huang about why Putney has branched out.

Jean Hoffman: "The 'eureka moment' of developing the idea to do generic drugs for pets was when I had an old cat and my cat developed hyperthyroidism which is common in older kitties and I had to give him a pill once a day. And as it cost originally $30 a month and when the dose was doubled,  it was $60 a month for my old, adopted shelter cat. And coming from the drug industry, I looked up the drug and I realized that I could develop it as a generic and that there was a great business in doing that and other people couldn't afford to give their cat a $60 a drug every single month for the rest of its life.

Josie Huang: "And this was a branded drug made specifically for pets or was it for humans?"

Hoffman: "Good question. This drug was made for humans and at the time only available as a branded human drug and later on there was a generic developed for that human drug but a palatable version for cats has never been developed."

Huang: "So there seems to be a generic version of almost every human drug.  Why isn't this case yet for drugs for pets?"

Hoffman:  "The pet pharmacuetical indsutry has been dominated by what we call 'big Pharma' animal health. So most of the big branded drug companies have subsidiaries that focus on medicines for animals, both food animals and pets. And the expression 'cash cow' actually is perfect for these big pharma health subsidiairies because they are literally milked as cash cows by their big pharmaceutical parents. So they develop often second-choice drugs that come out of the R&D pipelines of the human companies for less cost. They bring them over as drugs for pets -- often very good drugs for pets -- but there's never been a generic industry focused on developing drugs for pets with the right skill set to overcome the very considerable barriers to getting the drugs through the vigorous FDA process and into the hands of veterinarians."

Huang: "Well, before Putney introduced its own generic drug for pets, the company had been marketing human generic drugs for use in animals. Why not keep doing that if it's saving pet owners money? Is it important or necessary to have generic drugs designed or formulated specifically  for animals?"

Hoffman: "We are continuing to offer for sale selected human products that vets wants to use for pets that offer an option where there isn't a vet-approved drug or where the vets feel there is an opportunity to save money. But with a human drug it can't be marketed or promoted for pets and there aren't any indications so it hasn't gone through the testing process in dogs and you can't tell the veterinarian how to dose it without going through the testing and development process, and in some cases there are veterinary drugs approved for pets for which there is no huamn equivalent. The drug that Putney just launched -- a generic Carprofen caplet.  Carprofen is a drug approved only in dogs. So there is no human version of Carprofen that could be offered to help achieve savings for pet owners."

Huang: "What kind of savings can pet owners get from buying generic drugs for pets?"

Hoffman: "The savings should be pretty significant, in the range of 25-30 percent. That of coursre depends on how much competition there is for the drug, and how their veterinarian prices it."

Huang: "It sounds like human generics, you can actually get steeper savings. Is that because there is more competition in the human generics market?"

Hoffman: "The human generics industry is very, very competitive. It's very, very efficient. It's the almost perfect capitalistic market of supply and demand. Once there is multiple approvals, there's a lot of cost driven out of the market-- some would say too much cost. Because there has to be a certain level of profitablity for the manufaturers in order to maintain compliance with FDA standards and quality. But the human generic market is very efficient and there's a lot of choice, a lot of companies with the skillset and Ph.d's to bring these drugs to market, and that has been lacking on the pet side."

Huang: "Now generics will certainly save pet owners money. Do you think it will also change the way veterinary care is delivered? Will pet owners be more apt to try drug therapies suggested by their veterinarians for their animals if they are more affordable?"

Hoffman: "Veterinarians tell us if they could get more affordable generics for some of the particularly expensive medicines, it would change the way they practice medicine because they could afford to use the standard of care drug as first-line therapy instead of so often substituting a human drug that is less efficacious in order to help the pet owners save money.  Pet owners will be able to afford to be in compliance with vet scripts and continue to give the pet the drug every day for chronic use drugs and not skip doses to save money."