Thanks to Patent Baristas for tipping us off to the latest online pharmaceutical Flash-plugin board game craze, Biologicsland! Biologicsland is brought to you by the wacky folks over at Teva Pharmaceuticals. Teva (NASDAQ:TEVA) is the largest generic drug company in the world, with 2007 sales of $9.4 billion and 28,000 employees.
As you can see, it bears a striking resemblance to the source of its inspiration, Candyland, minus the Molasses Swamp: (which would be what, in this case? Congress? the FDA? The Biotechnology Industry Organization?)
Biologic drugs are vaccines, blood and blood components, allergenics, somatic cells, gene therapy, tissues, and recombinant therapeutic proteins that are are isolated from a variety of natural sources - human, animal, or microorganism, as opposed to conventional drugs, which are chemically synthesized.
The issue of generic biologic drugs, or "follow-on biologics" as they're wonkily known, is a complicated one, and difficult to explain to the public. In a nutshell, supporters (including us here at PAL) of legalizing generic versions of biologic drugs (again, the wonkish translation is "creating a pathway for follow-on biologics) argue that biologic drugs are going to be a budget-buster for the health care system over the next ten years, and that the science has sufficiently advanced to enable the creation of equally safe and effective "generic" versions of biologic drugs.
Legislation has been proposed to allow for generic biologics, but so far has not passed. The prospects for passage in the coming year are better, however, with both presidential candidates publicly supporting generic biologics. Teva is obviously trying to get the issue more in the public eye with this game, and trying to make it less intimidating and confusing. Of course, you can only get across so much information and complexity in a board game...
So head on over to Biologicsland and test your knowledge.