Is there a difference between generic and branded drugs?




Generic drugs do not differ greatly from their branded equivalents. All drugs are carefully regulated in exactly the same way to ensure they contain the correct amount of active ingredient as well as suitable inactive ingredients and are produced and manufactured in a similar way.

The generic drug must be shown to be bioequivalent to the branded alternative i.e. releases exactly the same amount of active ingredient over the same time scale.

The differences often lie mostly in the presentation of the drug for example a branded drug may produce pills which have a nice colouring and flavour, whereas the generic version will generally contain little more than the active ingredient.

There should therefore be very little difference to the patient between branded and generic drugs and both have to go through the same regulators. Generics have a few advantages however over the branded alternatives.

The branded drug is often the first of it’s type to be developed and so the company spends a lot of money on developing, testing and patenting it’s new drug and consequently they are more expensive.

Generic Drugs appear once a patent has expired or in rare cases are different enough from the original to get around the patent whilst still doing the same job.

Generic drug with just smaller development and manufacture costs are often a lot cheaper and so are far more likely to be prescribed. This affordability also means increased availability especially to those in poorer countries.

Post this page to: del.icio.us Yahoo! MyWeb Digg reddit Furl Blinklist Spurl

Comments

Name
E-mail (Will not appear online)
Homepage
Title
Comment
;-) :-) :-D :-( :-o >-( B-) :oops: :-[] :-P
To prevent automated Bots form spamming, please enter the text you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.



If you were involved in an accident in Texas, we'll be happy to mail it to you (together with a host of other free stuff.) You can either email us, call us at (512) 343-2572, or complete our form.