What are Generic Medicines?

There is a saying that “you get what you pay for”. Basically it means that quality cost money – if you are not prepared to pay much for an article or service you cannot expect much in return. Fortunately this is not applicable to generic medicines. Here the opposite is true – when buying generic medicines you actually get far more than you pay for. The reason is that generic alternatives sometimes cost less than half the price of branded equivalents.

But what are generic medicines exactly? A short explanation is that generic medicines are medicines marketed without a brand name. The generic name is the trade name the manufacturer gives to the medicine but to market it successfully, they give a brand name to the medicine.

The difference between a brand name and generic name can be explained as follows: The brand name is chosen by the manufacturer, usually on the basis that it can be recognized, pronounced and remembered by health professionals and members of the public. An example would be Viagra - this is the well-known brand name given to the generic medicine sildenafil. (Brand names are capitalized; generic names are not.)

Therefore, generic medicines are chemically identical to their brand name equivalents. They have the same strength, quality, dosage and results. There are only two differences: they may look different and they are definitely cheaper!

How are generics produced? Pharmaceutical companies spend years and lots of money on laboratory research to develop new medicines which are mass produced and patented under brand names for consumers. These branded or patented medicines have to be sold at a price that would recover the costs of the research required to produce them and also supplement continued research into the same and other medicines. Patents do not last indefinitely and when a patent expires, manufacturers can produce and sell the medicines under a different name and at a much cheaper price. This is called generic medicines – they have the same chemical ingredients but the brand name is not used due to the patent that expired. It can also happen that pharmaceutical companies may allow other manufacturers to produce generics under license before expiry of a patent.

But if they are the same as the branded medicine, why are they cheaper? Although generics have exactly the same ingredients they do not have the same massive costs involved in the development and testing of the branded medicine. Generic medicines therefore cost far less to produce and the savings are passed on to the consumer.

Generic medicines may differ in their inactive ingredients which can affect the colour, shape and size of the medicine.  It is only the external appearance of the medicine that differs but it is guaranteed that the active ingredients are the same quality. The only reason that the external appearances are differing is that trade mark laws (applicable for the branded name) do not permit generics to look the same as the branded ones.

Rest assured – generic medicines are exact copies of original branded medicines. Worldwide generic medicine manufacturers have to meet the same stringent quality control standards as brand manufacturers and have to prove that their products have the same active ingredients and same concentration level as the original branded medicines. Governments worldwide ensure that medicine control boards or equivalent boards instituted by law, act as watch dogs to make sure that quality which may affect the health of consumers are not jeopardized.

In conclusion, generic medicines have not been introduced or brought onto markets just for the sake thereof. No, worldwide medical costs are constantly increasing faster than the average rate of inflation and therefore the need to control the escalation of medicine prices also increased. An effective way to do it, but without influencing quality medical care, is to allow generic medicines on the market as competition for and substitution of branded medicines.

Generic medicines are here to stay for the benefit of the consumer.