What Generics Give to the World?

With a deficiency of financial resources in the systems of public funds of medical aid and/or those of insurance, with an impossible costliness of original medications for these systems, cheaper reproduced medications are used in increasing frequency and readiness.

           One should not forget about such an important marketing property of reproduced medications, as an ability to encourage the progress of the medical aid in whole and that of the pharmaceutics market in particular. The question is about “innovation” generics, i.e. preparations that reproduce innovation original medications, distinguished for their new mechanisms of action and properties and providing better performance and safety factors in comparison with well-known medicines. Besides, a fundamental criterion of attribution of a generic to the “innovation” category is its entrance to the market as early as possible after validity end date of patent protection of the innovation original medication.

            Such generics are able to compete not only with each other, but also with original medications. In this context experts consider their presence as an important factor of encouraging of innovation developments.

           In 1998 in its special report on the state of this field the EC Internal Pharmaceutics Market Commission within the frame of the Community pointed out the desirability of encouraging of competition between generics, recommending special activities on development and regulation of the pharmaceutics market, because the rivalry in this sector will contribute much to the development of the competition at the pharmaceutics market in the whole.

Thus, western experts consider just the presence of generics at the market as a tool of competition. Due to the competitive pressure a spiral of progression of pharmaceutics market is unwounded: after the validity end date of patent protection for the original medication the manufacturer in many cases loses monopoly in the relative market position, its original medication becomes only “the first among equals”, but not the only one in the relative position. That is why research companies long before an expectable emergence of generics prepare and introduce new original medicines (in many cases several ones at the same time), which during about 15 years will reign in certain market niches. There is a closed cycle: in order to recover value from developments and introduce innovation medications to the market super-profits are needed, which it is possible to get only on account of innovation monopolistic medications, and in order to get them investments to developments are needed. If were not generics, i.e. the competition in these positions, there would not have been a pressure lever making companies to introduce new medications, not having competitors during many years.

(by Medrx-One)