There's a larger game in play in the Newark courtroom, too, according to the generic companies, and it became more interesting a few weeks ago. As Schering-Plough holds the generics at bay with one hand, it had hoped to receive F.D.A. approval in time to introduce desloratadine, its second-generation version of Claritin that will be marketed as Clarinex, this spring. ''The longer the litigation is dragged out,'' says Elliot F. Hahn, president of Andrx, ''the more opportunity they have to market desloratadine to physicians and switch them from the Claritin line to the desloratadine line.'' But that plan ran into a major snag in mid-February, when Schering-Plough revealed that the approval of desloratadine was being held up until the company corrects manufacturing deficiencies cited by the F.D.A. at four of its plants.

What to do in a crisis? Market! Several days later, as the company's stock plunged and attorneys hustled to organize shareholder lawsuits, Schering-Plough announced big new ''consumer education'' and pharmacy programs for Claritin -- the ''largest and most comprehensive allergy initiative of its kind.'' The company plans to distribute 35 million free drug samples to doctors, 6 million allergy brochures, 65,000 drugstore displays and, yes, 350 million more of those little blue pharmacy bags.

Finally, an edifying case of sticker shock. Late last fall, my allergist prescribed a month's supply of Claritin-D to clear up some congestion before I started my first round of allergy desensitization shots. The pharmacy had misplaced my insurance number, so when I went to pick up the prescription, the clerk handed me a bill for $103. This is the consumer's trickle-down tab for the roughly $250 million in drug development, more than $100 million a year in consumer advertising, many millions in closed-door marketing, $20 million in lobbying and political contributions, $5 million a year for litigation. I was stunned that it was so expensive, and I asked myself a question that is a normal part of every marketplace but health care. If I had to pay $103 out of my own pocket, would I buy this medicine? Was it worth it?

With the exception of elderly people on Medicare and the uninsured, most of us never ask that question. In a recent conversation, Gillian Shepherd, a Manhattan allergy specialist, addressed the same point, noting that antihistamines like Claritin and Allegra are about equal in potency to over-the-counter drugs like Chlor-Trimeton. And while some patients experience sedation with these drugs, many do not. ''Fifty percent of the population can tolerate most of them without any sedation,'' she explained. ''The feeling is that if there's a chance of sedation and third parties are paying, why not use the nonsedating drugs? If people were paying out of pocket, the story would be completely different.''

As I labored to sort through all the clinical data and all the confusing advertising, I found myself wishing that we had reviewers who would talk bluntly about new drugs, who could discuss efficacy, safety and value from the consumer's point of view, who could deconstruct the advertising, who would include cost as a criterion. But those are medical judgments, some would say, and only doctors should dispense them. True, but many doctors, it turns out, have largely abdicated that responsibility -- they rarely know what a drug costs, and as Shepherd mentioned, many learn about the properties of a given drug not from the medical literature but from company salesmen, who are paid to tell one-sided stories.

And so what? Richard Kogan, Schering's C.E.O., testified before Congress two years ago that drug companies need constant and ample revenue streams to support their enormous and dicey R&D enterprise, and he's right. In order to be competitive in this post-genomic era, large pharmaceutical companies need to spend $2 billion to $4 billion a year on research to develop new drugs. The industry has developed many remarkable medicines, and more are on the way.

But if high drug prices are a kind of innovation tax for American consumers, we should at least demand innovation in return. Many high-priced, successful drugs, like Zyrtec, are developed overseas and simply marketed here by American companies. Moreover, a significant amount of pharmaceutical innovation currently occurs in the biotech sector, where small, cutting-edge companies typically license their discoveries to big pharma, which has the marketing expertise. What innovative new drugs does Schering, for example, have in the pipeline, subsidized by the billions of dollars earned from Claritin? Financial analysts are mixed on the company's potential treatments -- for cancer, asthma, high cholesterol and several other major diseases -- but a leading candidate for future blockbuster status is . . . desloratadine, the chemical that is the principal metabolite, or breakdown product, of Claritin. Anyone who has taken Claritin has already had desloratadine in his or her body.