Pharmaceutical Generics Make Your Drugs More Accessible To Your Patients. Here's how

For any pharmaceutical company, the main aim of drug development is to reach a significant number of people and help treat their ailments. Obviously, as a business, they do focus on profitable marketing, but the essence is to make your drugs more accessible to your patients.

Any pharmaceutical generics company sells drugs mainly under two categories- brand name and generic drugs.

The composition of the drugs sold under the brand name and the generic includes the same active ingredient but may differ regarding the inactive ingredients or the filler material. A drug may have the same generic name in all the countries worldwide but will have a different brand name even in companies within the same region.

The question that arises is - when the generic drug and the drug's brand name actually have the same active ingredient and has the same effect on the person, what is the need to introduce a brand name for the drug?

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Selling of Drugs Under Brand Name:

Brand names are only given to the drug to prevent the other companies from producing and selling the drug they have developed or discovered. This can be done by patenting their discovery, but the process of patency can take up to 20 years, and the company cannot afford to let the other companies, the rivals, produce and sell the drug they have discovered.

The brand name associated with the drug brings the drug under the company name's umbrella and prohibits its replication by other rivals. This helps the pharmaceutical companies sell the discovered drug under a brand name, gain profits, and recover investments that they had put into manufacturing or developing the drug.

The only problem with the brand-name drug is that it is much more expensive than the generic drug that contains the same active ingredient and has the same effect on the patient. This is because the brand has to invest a lot of money in the drug's branding, packaging, advertising, marketing, and other such considerations.

The truth is that a large chunk of the people in the world are in a position where they cannot afford the high prices of the drugs that come under a brand name. This defeats the very purpose of developing the drug in the first place. If the drug cannot reach most people who need it, generic drugs are those that come to the rescue!

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Selling Of Drugs Under Generic Name:

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‍Generic medicines are an excellent substitute for expensive brand-name drugs and can reach many patients. The cost of production is less, the time involved in the production is less, and therefore the accessibility of the drug increases and the price decreases.

The FDA ensures that the generic medicines have the same standards as the brands, and only then are they approved to be sold. This is why even if somebody is concerned about the effectiveness or the safety of the drug that falls under the generic category, they need not be worried.
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Here are some of the things that the FDA keeps in mind to ensure that the standards are high for generic drugs as they are for brand-name drugs:

●  It is made sure that the generic drug has the same active ingredient as a brand name drug even if the inactive ingredient or the filler ingredient is different

●  The generic medicine has the same strength and same frequency of dosage as the brand name medicine by ensuring the same concentration of the active ingredient

●  It is also kept in mind that the route of administration or the dosage form of the generic drug must be the same as the brand name drug

●  The manufacturing standards of the generic drug are required to be the same as the brand name drug

●  Overall, the generic drug should be bioequivalent of the brand name medicine
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Conclusion:

If the generic drug meets all these conditions, the FDA approves it. Then the generic medicines become accessible to patients making the drug more affordable and accessible! This is how pharmaceutical companies can use generics to make drugs more accessible to those patients in need and serve the purpose that the company was built on in the first place.
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About ZIM Laboratories

ZIM Labs is an innovative drug delivery solution provider focusing on improving patient convenience and adherence to drug intake. We offer a range of technology-based drug delivery solutions and non-infringing proprietary manufacturing processes for the production and supply of innovative and differentiated generic pharmaceutical products to our customers globally. At ZIM Labs we provide our customers a comprehensive range of value-added solid dosage differentiated generic products in semi-finished and finished categories/formulations. These include granules, pellets (immediate, sustained, modified and extended-release), taste-masked powders, suspensions, tablets, capsules, and recently developed Oral Thin Films (OTF).‍‍