Activists also claim that drug companies engage in “product hopping,” an alleged practice that is closely related to evergreening. The difference between the two concepts is that firms who product hop stop producing or marketing earlier iterations of a product once they patent a new version. Some groups say this practice only serves to increase the market share of brand-name drugs and deter generic competition.
It’s critical to remember that virtually all companies in every industry eventually stop making early versions of their technologies. For instance, the top smartphone manufacturers no longer produce or support the earliest iterations of their products. Few would consider this a malicious practice, yet it still qualifies as “product hopping,” at least according to activists’ definition.
In the case of drugs, generic manufacturers are still welcome to create knockoff versions of the original formulation. Whether or not a brand name manufacturer is still producing the original formulation is completely irrelevant.
Patients’ and providers’ desire for updated and improved drugs — not legal barriers or product hopping — explain why some biotech companies maintain strong market share even after the patents on their original formulations expire.