Inexpensive copies
Does the patent of an original drug such as aspirin out, this puts other manufacturers in a position to bring medicines with the same active ingredient and dosage onto the market within the framework of the rules prescribed by the Medicines Act. These are called generics and are significantly cheaper than the originals, on average costing about a third less. According to welt.de, this considerable price difference is due, among other things, to the significantly shorter development time required for generics: where an original drug usually takes around eight years to research and develop, the imitators are usually after just two years ready for the market. The resulting price advantage can be observed, for example, with the surrogates for aspirin. The generic counterpart to the popular painkiller is called ASS and costs only a third of the original for the same quantity.
High fluctuations in effect
But although the generics contain the same active ingredient as their role models, there can be enormous differences in the individual effect, as reported by rp-online.de. The strength of a generic drug can be up to 25 percent higher and 20 percent lower than the original drug, with the difference usually being five percent. The resulting difference in active ingredients is sometimes up to 45 percent. The law requires the existence of a so-called bioequivalence when imitating patented medicines: the active ingredient of the generic drug must be at the site of action just as quickly and in the same quantity as in the original. According to welt.de, the deviation permitted by law is mainly due to other auxiliary materials used. These help to transport the active ingredient to where it is supposed to take effect in the body and also influence the tolerability of the drug.
risks for patients
The differences mentioned can certainly harbor certain risks for the patient. The difference in active ingredients between originals and generics means that the therapeutic effectiveness of the imitator often differs significantly from that of the model, reports rp-online.de. A possible consequence of switching from a patented drug to a generic drug is, for example, a circulatory collapse caused by the higher or lower strength. The risk of switching medications is particularly high in the case of what experts call “critical dose medications”: with these, even a small change in the concentration of the active ingredient can have a serious impact on the course of the disease. Another risk is the risk of confusion arising from the variety of medicines. Patients are confronted with an increasing number of similar medicines from different manufacturers, all of which differ in shape, size, color and packaging, so that classification can be a challenge even for the prescribing doctor. This makes it more difficult for older patients in particular, who have to take a large number of medicines, to keep track of things.
Thomas Weschle / Editor finanzen.net
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