This is just an excerpt from an article in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal... Pill Pushers the book is right on target!!!!

Big Pharma Faces Grim Prognosis

Industry Fails to Find
New Drugs to Replace
Wonders Like Lipitor

By BARBARA MARTINEZ and JACOB GOLDSTEIN
December 6, 2007; Page A1

Over the next few years, the pharmaceutical business will hit a wall.

Some of the top-selling drugs in industry history will become history as patent protections expire, allowing generics to rush in at much-lower prices. Generic competition is expected to wipe $67 billion from top companies' annual U.S. sales between 2007 and 2012 as more than three dozen drugs lose patent protection. That is roughly half of the companies' combined 2007 U.S. sales.

GOING OFF PATENT

Sortable Chart: Starting in 2010, the pharmaceutical industry faces one of the biggest waves of patent expirations.

At the same time, the industry's science engine has stalled. The century-old approach of finding chemicals to treat diseases is producing fewer and fewer drugs. Especially lacking are new blockbusters to replace old ones like Lipitor, Plavix and Zyprexa.