Generic medicines are drugs or medications that are developed and equivalent to the existing branded drug in the market in terms of the drug strength, effectiveness, dosage, quality, and performance. Generic medicines can be produced by any drug manufacturing company only after the patents protection period for the original brand expires. This patent protection rights are generally provided by the health regulatory body who approves the medicine keeping in mind the extensive work and initiative taken up by the company in order to contribute to the science & development.
Why are the generic drugs cheaper and unpopular?
So when we say that the generic medicines are as same as the branded one, you should be wondering what’s creating such a drastic change in prices. People usually assume that if any product is out in the market at a cheaper price, it’s considered to be compromised in terms of its quality and durability. The same goes with generic medicines. But there is totally a different reason on why generic medicines are cheaper and affordable compared to the original branded ones. When it comes to developing and bringing out a medicine in a market, lots of work is involved which we are not aware of. Due to their extensive research, use of the time and money, the end medicine when introduced in the market is charged at a higher cost to cover all its production cost. Most of the people don’t know this and question the credibility of the generic medicines and the generic companies that are producing them.
Let’s see the amount of work that’s put in use to get a drug out in the market.
Research and Development:
Discovery stage:
- They first take up a disease that needs a scientific study and that can help save a lot of lives.
- Once the disease is selected, they start with the process of making a drug that can either cure or treat the disease.
- Several tests regard to molecular compounds are conducted in the clinical research setup to find out ways on how the disease can be slowed down initially.
Development stage:
Once they find the compounds that can help in developing the drug, they do various experiments to know
- Its mechanism and benefits
- What should be the right dosage
- Any additional compounds that need to be added
- The way how the compounds work within the body and how it’s excreted.
- The route of administration ( way or form when it comes to consuming the drugs)
- Look out for possible side effects
- How the compound is reacting when tried on different people.
- How it mixes up with the other drug at the same time.
Preclinical Research stage
Before they can try out the drug on the human volunteers they need to find out if they can cause any potential harm and set up the research laboratory as per the guidelines of the health care regulatory body.
Clinical Research Stage
In this stage, the drug is tried in the human body and the process of how the drug is performing is assessed.
This also includes
- Who should be the volunteers (groups or individuals)
- Period of the study
- How to control and limit the research
- Form of drugs dosage is checked
- How the research data will be collected, reviewed and analyzed.
Regulatory board Review
Once the drug is tested and developed, a sample along with the paperwork is sent to the governing body which will check and approve the medicines so that they can be available in the market. No medicines can be produced without this approval be it any country as different countries have different governing bodies.
The drug developer needs to mention in the paper work about the detail pre-research that was involved. They should also add its labeling, instructions on how to use along with any health specific warnings, their patent information once approved.
All these factors are thoroughly reviewed by the governing regulatory body.
Safety Monitoring stage:
Once the drug is approved, the drug is monitored over a period of time to see if it’s been safe for the people consuming it. If any side effects or any complaints are raised from the consumer point of view, the issue is looked upon. If the drug is not useful in a long run than its patent rights are evoked.
With this information, we are sure that now you will be at ease when consuming generic medicines!
Genericwala, provide high quality generic medicines related to various illness conditions with regard to allergies, immunization, cancer, central nervous system, circulatory system, ENT, skin, endocrine and much more.