For once, there's talk about declining health care costs.

According to a recent study by EvaluatePharma, a London-based pharmaceutical research firm, 13 major brand-name drugs, accounting for $15.3 billion of the pharmaceutical industry, will lose their patents over the next 14 months, giving way to generic alternatives. Popular drugs, such as Plavix, Seroquel and Singulair, for example, will all have available generic equivalents by 2012, and this is an opportunity for human resource departments to cut costs.

While the pharmaceutical industry might be worrying about the impact of the generic drug influx, this is ultimately good news for HR departments, says Lisa Carlton, a total rewards/compensation and benefits special expertise panelist for the Society for Human Resource Management. By 2016, $133 billion of branded drugs are set to expire, EvaluatePharm reports, but that just means many more generic drugs will be available. And that's exactly what HR departments need in a time when premiums are outpacing the inflation rate every year.