I'm in the US, and there are a couple of wrinkles to this: insurance typically won't cover off label use, so patients end up paying the full cost of the medication, and if there is a big enough market, I believe companies can patent the new use even if the patents for the original use have run out.

Doctors here are allowed to prescribe them though.

▲

Aurornis 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> insurance typically won't cover off label use

I’m in the US. This is not true.

Insurance will have prior authorization rules for certain drugs that are expensive that require the doctor to submit documentation of the condition, but in most cases the common medication is simply covered if prescribed. The insurance company does not receive documentation of every condition for every prescription to determine if the prescription is on label or off label.

Insurance companies can and do also support some off label treatments that are commonly used under their prior auth requirements.

I don’t know why there are so many comments in this thread making confident assertions that off label prescribing or insurance or so uncommon. This happens all day long at doctors offices and pharmacies.

▲

dpark 5 hours ago | parent [-]

So much weirdly confident misinformation here. When LLMs do this we can it hallucination.

▲

Jblx2 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Can't tell if this comment is agreeing with Aurornis or calling them out.

	▲	dpark 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Agreeing. There is a ton of blatant misinformation being shared in this thread by people who seem utterly confident despite their apparently complete ignorance.

▲

jpk2f2 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Insurance absolutely covers off label use. And depending on the area of medicine, off label use can be incredibly common (see cardiac pediatrics).

▲

bonsai_spool 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> I believe companies can patent the new use even if the patents for the original use have run out.

This is not true

> insurance typically won't cover off label use

Generally not true but it can be the case, especially for expensive medications

▲

amanaplanacanal 7 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes new uses of existing drugs can be patented:

https://www.drugpatentwatch.com/blog/patenting-new-uses-for-...

▲

bonsai_spool 6 hours ago | parent [-]

This is clearly made by an LLM and thus not a credible resource.

From:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9336118/

"COM claims can be difficult to gain for repurposed compounds, as the patentee must somehow differentiate their patent claims over what is in the public domain and present data that the drug is a credible candidate for the new indication [41, 42]."

citing

41 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32241561/

42 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30310233/

	▲	amanaplanacanal an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Do you like this source better? https://synapse.patsnap.com/blog/what-are-the-types-of-pharm...?

▲

tekla 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> insurance typically won't cover off label use

That's a lie, I get off-label drugs prescribed monthly covered.