Branded Vs Generic Medicines : Part 1
It describes, Branded Vs Generic medicines Terminogly , Definitions of Branded and Generic Medicines, Causes, Reasons for low cost and when Generic medicines can be manufactured.
Branded Vs Generic Medicines: Understanding and Differences
What is mean by Branded Medicines?
Branded medicines are developed and marketed by pharmaceutical companies, and they have a trademark name for it .They are protected by patents, which give the manufacturer exclusive rights to sell the medicine for a particular period. A Brand names are in simpler form than the generic name.
What is mean by Generic Medicines?
Generic medicines can be defined as a it is substitute/ copy of Branded medicines contains the same active ingredient, dose, strength and administrations. A generic name is the actual chemical name of the drug with respect to the Active pharmaceutical ingredient present within the drug. Moreover it doesn’t have any trademark
Why Generic Medicines are cheaper than Branded Medicines?
When we look at the price of both the branded and generic Medicines, generic medicines are much cheaper than branded Medicines. The principal reason behind this is the huge investment incurred by the brand manufacturing company from the time of research and development till the drug reaches to its end user.
To understand in nut shell where the amount of money spent by the branded drug manufacturer need to understand below points.
1. Brand name companies invest huge amount of money in the process of research and development of any New medicine.
2. Once the medicine is ready, it has to get approval from the government agencies before people can use it. Lot of money is spent in this process.
3. Once approved by the government agencies, the product is promoted using extensive marketing techniques through all kinds of media and again big money is involved in this process.
Because of this overhead cost ( For Research and Development, clinical trials and marketing) involved in developing a particular drug hence the end product becomes expensive keeping in mind the profitability of the company.
On the other hand, a generic drug manufacturing company does not require to incur such a big level of investment in while developing and manufacturing generic medicines which enables them to sell their medicines at cheaper cost and keeping their profit intact.
Why generic drug manufacturers don’t have such huge overhead cost?
1. A generic drug manufacturing company has enough information from the studies done by the brand manufacturing company, so they don’t require huge amount of money for Research and Development.
2. By claiming their drug as a bioequivalent, they don’t have to spend money to put their medicine on clinical trials.
3. Also, due to extensive marketing of the innovator brand, they just claim their product to be equivalent to it and benefit from the market value of the brand name medicine.
When generic medicines can be Manufactured by Pharmaceutical Companies ?
Generic medicines can be legally produced in the following conditions
1. If the patent of the brand manufacturer has expired.
2. For medicines which never held patents.
3. If the generic medicine manufacturing company certifies the brand companies patents are invalid or unenforceable or will not be breached.
4. In countries where patents are not enforceable.
