GENERIC
AND BRANDED DRUGS – SCI & TECH
News:
Generic drugs in the US
are too cheap to be sustainable
What's
in the news?
●
Generic drugs are the singularity of
American healthcare – they are too cheap. And it’s driving some manufacturers
out of business altogether.
Key
takeaways:
●
Americans pay on average 2.5 times more
for prescription drugs than other wealthy, developed nations.
Generic
Drugs:
●
It is a medication that has exactly the same active ingredient as the
brand-name drug and yields the same therapeutic effect.
Features of Generic Drugs:
●
It is the same in dosing, safety, strength, quality, the way it works, the
way it is taken, and the way it should be used.
●
These similarities help to demonstrate bioequivalence, which means that a generic
medicine works in the same way and provides the same clinical benefit as the
brand-name medicine.
●
They do
not involve repetition of extensive clinical trials over the years, unlike
brands that undergo extensive R&D procedure.
●
They also have the same risks and benefits as their brand-name counterparts.
●
Generic drugs do not need to contain the
same inactive ingredients as the brand-name product.
●
A generic drug can only be marketed after the brand name drug's patent
has expired.
●
Generic drugs are usually much less expensive than brand-name drugs.