Medicines under generic name can be cheaper

KARACHI (PPI) - The selling of most drugs under a trade or brand names raising a controversy of variance in drug prices which produces of the same active ingredient. A generic medicine is typically 20 to 80 per cent less expensive than the brand name but the practice to sell medicine by their generic names is yet to adopted in our country.
A generic name is the active ingredient of medicine for example; a drug has a formula called Aspirin.
It is sold by a pharmaceutical company, Reckitt Benckiser Pakistan by the name DISPIRIN. Different Pharma companies sell the same drug with the same generic formula and give their unique names.
Merck Marker sells strip of 10 capsules of generic name drug ‘Doxycycline’ under a brand name Supramycin while Pfizer Laboratories sells same medicine of similar active ingredient under a brand title ‘Vibramycin’. Noticeably it also creates a price dissimilarity as same products by different drug manufacturers are sold under different brand names at different prices.
Their prices for the same formula are much less than the price of the original company that started the drug or owns patent rights. The reason could be weak enforcement or implementation of quality control laws in our country, say experts. In addition, the availability of lower-priced generic medicines brings down the price of originator drugs through market competition, making even further savings to patients.
The principal reason for the relatively low price of generic medicines is that competition increases among manufacturers when drugs no longer are protected by patents. Majority of pharmaceutical companies usually give preference to sell medicine under a brand name, which commonly fulfils their financial requirements.
Chairman Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) Zahid Saeed said the practice of selling medicines under only generic names cannot be espoused as different manufacturers bears different sum of expenses in manufacturing purpose. “There is no country in the world where drugs are being sold with its generic name” he maintained.