Anonymous 7.43AM:
"Real" companies actually do employ this tactic, but much less frequently. Of course, they are doing it with "real" products. Pernix, and others like it, have to do this on a regular and frequent basis because many of their products have no exclusivity protection from the FDA to protect against third-party generics. The ANDA filings on products like Zutripro provide no window during which generics are not allowed. So, once Pernix gets the sales for a product like Zutripro up to a certain level, they can be assured that some bottom-feeding generic player is going to file their own ANDA knock-off, undercut the price and take scripts away. The best defense for Pernix is to jack up the brand price, enjoy the added margin for a while, then roll out an "authorized" generic through Macoven or Cypress at a lower price and try to fend off third-party generics as long as possible.
Back in the day when DESI products were still hopping, this was even more prevalent, because a generic player didn't even have to go the the time, effort or expense to file an ANDA to roll out a copy-cat DESI generic. They could just line up a manufacturer to formulate and produce the product (4-6 months and $100K), and hoila! Generic! This was Cypress/Hawthorne's bread-and-butter strategy. Pernix bought Macoven a few years ago to give them a captive generic company to do the same thing.
Big pharma companies will do this as well, but they only have to resort to this as their patents are running out (5+ years down the road). In some cases, they may even partner with a third-party to launch the generic and try to beat everyone else to market.