At the moment, the pharmaceutical market offers many drugs for treatment from various manufacturers. In addition to the fact that original medicines are presented in pharmacies, you can also see the so-called generics, the cost of which is much lower.
If you carefully read the instructions, you will definitely notice that both the active substance itself and its dosage in generics and original medicines are absolutely the same. Moreover, the cost varies greatly.
A completely logical question arises: why overpay in this case? For what reasons do doctors often advise to purchase drugs at a high price? Is this just business or is it just guesswork? Let's figure it out together.
Subtleties from legislation
As everyone knows, the prescription of drugs is regulated by law, and therefore the prescription of any drug depends not only on the personal preferences of the doctor. For example, when issuing a prescription since 2012 in Russia, doctors must indicate only the international non-proprietary name of the drug.
If a doctor recommends their preferred drug (brand name), then this is something like "outlaw". However, the extent to which this approach makes sense can be debated. A patient who comes to a pharmacy, in any case, will find himself in a situation where he needs to choose a medicine. And in some situations, a pharmacist will give advice, often offering a more expensive medicine.
Medicinal product quality
For what reasons is it most appropriate to use an expensive original drug? This is the quality of the drug that has been tested in clinical trials.
People who create drugs spend a lot of money for its development, technological process, and also in a multi-stage study in which the effectiveness and safety of a drug is tested for people. As a result, the cost of the drug increases, however, while it will be of high quality, respectively, the drug will act exactly according to the instructions.
The generic is not necessarily inferior to the original drug, but there is a risk. Why then? First, the chemical formula of some drugs, in particular biological drugs, is unusually complex. Therefore, if there is no detailed information about the technological process, it is very difficult to accurately recreate it. Second, in many cases, copy drugs are not tested as thoroughly as the original drugs.
Is there a possibility of replacement
I must say that there are many generics that are as effective as the original drugs. For this reason, both physicians and patients need to know how to achieve a balance in the cost-quality ratio.
Ask your doctor right away if your prescribed medication can be replaced with a generic one. You also need to carefully study: how reliable the manufacturing company is, medical reviews, whether there are clinical trials and what are their results.
Conclusion:
It becomes clear that conscientious doctors prescribe more expensive proven drugs, since they are confident in the positive result of treating their patient. However, there is a downside to the coin.. The price of some drugs is unreasonably high, because the manufacturer needs to "recoup money" spent on marketing and advertising.
It is interesting to know your opinion, what do you think about this? Write in the comments.
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P.S. What you need to eat to become a long-liver (read the article: long-liver recipe).
Read on the channel - 🍽Tasty dish: "we cleanse the blood and normalize the bowel function"
The article is for informational purposes only. If you have any health problems, it is recommended to seek help from a specialist.
