Generic or branded — drug debate’s on

Manav Mander

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, February 17

There has been an ongoing debate about the use of generic and branded drugs. Doctors prescribe drugs by brand name.

The government should formulate a specific policy regarding the pricing of generic drugs so that they can prove beneficial to patients. Pricing should be patient-friendly and the government should fix the price, leaving no room for companies to inflate the rates of the drugs.

Let’s have a closer look at what generic and branded drugs are, how they are different and what medical fraternity has to say about it.

The difference between generic and branded drugs

Big pharmaceutical companies spend huge money to bring a new drug brand to the market. They protect that drug brand with a patent that prevents anyone else from selling the active ingredient for a certain period of time. Eventually, that patent expires and thus allowing another company to make another pill, a generic, with the same active ingredient.

Generic drugs are copies of brand-name drugs that have exactly the same dosage, intended use, effects, side-effects, route of administration, risks, safety and strength as the original drug. In other words, their pharmacological effects are exactly the same as those of their brand-name counterparts. Many people become concerned because generic drugs are often substantially cheaper than the brand-name versions and wonder if the quality and effectiveness have been compromised to make the less expensive products.

Generic drugs are only cheaper because the manufacturers have not had the expenses of developing and marketing a new drug. When multiple companies begin producing and selling a drug, the competition among them can also drive the price down even further.

Same standards are applied for all drug manufacturing companies. A majority of them manufacture both brand-name and generic drugs. It is estimated that 50 per cent of the generic drug production is by brand-name companies.

Sometimes, generic versions of a drug have different colours, flavours or combinations of inactive ingredients than the original medications. It is not mandatory that generic drugs look exactly like the brand-name preparation, but the active ingredients must be the same in both preparations, ensuring that both have the same medicinal effects.

Doctors’ take

Dr Arun Mitra, general secretary, Indian Doctors for Peace and Development, said, “We have written to the government to remove aberrations in the prices of drugs. The maximum retail price (MRP) of the medicines being sold in the category of generic from reputed companies is not different from the branded medicines. But the purchase price of the generic category is less for the retailer while the branded medicines are given to the retailer at about 20 per cent margin. This substantially increases the margin of profit to the retailer on the sale of medicines being marketed under generic. The government should ensure that the MRP of the medicines sold under the generic is substantially reduced to benefit the patients. The Code of Marketing Practice for Indian Pharmaceutical Industry by the government states that no gifts, pecuniary advantages or benefits in kind may be supplied, offered or promised to the doctors to prescribe or supply by a pharmaceutical company and gifts for the personal benefit of healthcare professionals (such as tickets to entertainment events) should also not be offered or provided. It is an open secret that makers of generic drugs consider all these costs while pricing a drug. If one follows this code, it will substantially reduce the cost of the production of the medicines. The benefit should go to the patients. The code of medical ethics for the medical professionals already prohibits them from receiving such benefits from the pharma companies. We are for affordable healthcare to our countrymen.”

Dr Divakar, a physician, said, “Physicians who meet pharmaceutical company representatives are significantly more likely to prescribe brand-name drugs compared to physicians who do not. The same was true for doctors who accepted gifts of food or beverages or domestic or foreign trips from pharmaceutical representatives. When we have the generic version of the medicines we should prescribe them instead of branded ones. The government needs to control the pricing of these drugs as generic versions of the branded drugs are also highly priced. The companies give gifts and ask the doctors to prescribe them and hence adjust this cost in the pricing of drugs.”