Generics vs Brand

Generics are the copies of original medicine. There has been already accumulated great experience of clinical application of their acting ingredients. Besides, generics are far cheaper than original medicine. These are their advantages.

The creation of generic drugs does not require such enormous expenses, as with original medicine, because the third of facilities (and more) spent on the development of a new drug goes on pre - clinical and clinical researches. A firm manufacturing generics does not conduct such researches. That is why generics will be always cheaper than brands.

In order to register and sell generic drugs nowadays, it is necessary to have production meeting very strict international requirements, in particular, the standards of GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice, a requirement for manufacturers of food and medications to assure that medications are of the required quality). Only few producers, who invest hundred of millions of dollars in production modernization can afford such luxury.

Besides, the competition has recently increased among them. So issuing a medicine of doubtful quality can strongly undermine the firm's reputation in the eyes of pharmacological distributors and doctors.

Therefore, more and more producers of generic drugs conduct clinical researches with the help of patients (these researches remain optional for the manufacturers, conducted at their own will) today, in order to confirm complete therapeutic accordance to the original.

Due to their availability concerning price and high quality, generics help cure a lot of illnesses so quickly, successfully and safely, as with taking original medicine. To tell the truth, original medicine is not always produced at the plants of the country, where they were created: for the economy of charges and price-cutting their production is put right in the less developed countries, and it may not be stated on the package.

Thus, there is no need to be afraid of buying generic drugs. But it is necessary to take into account that:

• generic drugs contain the same active medical ingredient (substance), as the original ones;
• generics differ from the original medicine with the help of additional ingredients (e.g. non-active ingredients, additions, conservatives, paints and other) and distinctions are observed during technological process of generics' production.