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Prescription drugs: how price depends on efficacy

By: kyala93

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Switching from brand name medications to generics may save a large sum, in particular if you are on medication for the first time. One the major differences is the retail price of branded and generic drugs.

Generic drugs accounted for less than 19% of all prescriptions filled in 1984. Now, generic medications represent more than 54% of all prescriptions available in the United States. In addition, even though generic drugs account for more than half of prescriptions available, they account for less than 16 cents of every dollar spent on prescription drugs. Today there are more than 7,800 generic versions of around 10,668 drugs approved by the U.S..

A great many people question the potency of generic medications, as they are frequently considerably cheaper than brand name medications. They would like to know if the quality and efficacy have been lowered to produce cheaper pharmaceuticals.

A 1990 study by FDA laboratories situated around the USA reported that for those categories of prescription medicines that were very likely to cause safety or efficacy problems if they were not made in the proper way, the generic drug met the applicable standards in almost all cases. The categories of medications examined included birth control drugs, antibiotics, and drugs prescribed for asthma, epilepsy, high blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythms. Of the 429 samples of the 24 different medications tested, including both brand name medicines and generics, there were no samples examined that posed a health threat to patients when studied for effectiveness.

The reason that these 24 different drugs were picked out is that they all have a narrow therapeutic scope. This means that in comparison to most kinds of medications, for which there is a relatively large scope of dosages that are both efficacious and relatively secure, the amount of these medicines that gets into the body must be more strictly controlled. If it is not, the drug may too easily lose its effectiveness (if the dose is too low) or become toxic (if the dose is too high).

The medications tested were 6 asthma medicines, 4 drugs for treating epilepsy, 4 high blood pressure medications, 4 medications for treating heart arrhythmias, a birth control pill, one antibiotic, a medication for curing depression, and the so-called blood-thinning medication. In six categories of medicines, both branded and generic versions were tested. In the case of the contraception, all of the main brand names, but no generic version, were tested.

For 23 of the 24 various medicines, there was no difference between the brand name and the generic versions in the FDA laboratory studies for purity or quality.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

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