Generic drugs are competing against one another to get cheaper — but it’s having an unintended consequence on the health of Americans

Kaitlin Wowak’s research on the competition to produce cheaper generic drugs was featured in a Business Insider article.  Wowak, an assistant professor in the Department of Information, Analytics, & Operations, coauthored the paper “Product competition, managerial discretion and manufacturing recalls in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry,” which appears in the Journal of Operations Management. Read the full story here. 

There’s a caveat to the availability of cheaper drugs: There’s no guarantee on consistent quality.

These days, generic drugmakers can’t seem to win. Consolidation of generic drug companies result in shortages, which negatively impacts patients. But competition has its own consequences as well.

Generic drug price competition in the market is associated with higher number of product recalls due to manufacturing-related issues, according to a new study.