What is Generic Medicine?

Although much older, the U.S generic industry started blossoming in 1984, with the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act, which allowed generic manufacturers to file for FDA approval for a drug without repeating that drug's innovator's clinical studies. As a result, countless branded medicines currently have generic counterparts.

Definition

• The term "generic medicine" refers to medications that are produced and commercialized without patent protection.

Time Frame

• Since drug companies lay out high costs to research, develop and market brand-name drugs, they usually receive a 20-year patent protection for the medicines they create. Only after that period can other drug companies sell generic versions of patented medicines.

Features

• Generic medicines and brand-name drugs contain the same active ingredients (the chemicals responsible for their therapeutic effect). However, their inactive ingredients, form, shape or color usually differ.

Function

• Since generic medicines have the same active ingredients, same mechanism of action, as well as the same benefits and side effects as their brand-name counterparts, they can treat the same conditions.

Misconceptions

• Generic medicines are not dangerous, cheap, ineffective versions of branded drugs. To be licensed, generics have to prove their efficacy and go through the same legal process as other pharmaceuticals.

Benefits

• Beyond therapeutic effectiveness, generic medicine provides increased competition, which drives prices down, to the advantage of consumers and other payers.