Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * New York Times Notable Book * Best Book of the Year: New York Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Science Friday

With a new postscript by the author

From an award-winning journalist, an explosive narrative investigation of the generic drug boom that reveals corporate fraud and life-threatening dangers on a global scale—The Jungle for pharmaceuticals

Many have hailed the widespread use of generic drugs as one of the most important public-health developments of the twenty-first century. Today, almost 90 percent of our pharmaceutical market is comprised of generics, the majority of which are manufactured overseas. We have been reassured by our doctors, our pharmacists and our regulators that generic drugs are identical to their brand-name counterparts, just less expensive. But is this really true when it comes to drug safety?

Katherine Eban’s Bottle of Lies exposes the deceit behind generic-drug manufacturing—and the attendant risks for global public health. Drawing on exclusive accounts from whistleblowers and regulators, as well as thousands of pages of confidential FDA documents, Eban reveals an industry where fraud is rampant, companies routinely falsify data, and executives circumvent almost every principle of safe manufacturing to minimize cost and maximize profit, confident in their ability to fool inspectors. Meanwhile, patients unwittingly consume medicine with unpredictable and dangerous effects.

The story of generic drugs is truly global. It connects middle America to China, India, sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil, and represents the ultimate litmus test of globalization: what are the risks of moving drug manufacturing offshore, and are they worth the savings?

A decade-long work of investigative journalism with international sweep, high-stakes brinkmanship and big money at its core, Bottle of Lies reveals how the world’s greatest public-health innovation has become one of its most astonishing swindles.

• Whistleblower Accounts: Go behind the scenes with exclusive accounts from industry insiders and regulators who risked everything to expose a conspiracy of lies.
• Overseas Manufacturing: Journey from middle America to manufacturing plants in India and China to uncover how the globalization of medicine created life-threatening dangers.
• Corporate True Crime: Based on thousands of pages of confidential documents, this is the story of how rampant data falsification turned a public health miracle into an astonishing swindle.
• FDA Investigation: Follow the high-stakes, decade-long investigation that peeled back the layers of deceit in the generic drug industry.