Medications and their risks at health
If cost savings to address a health problem you have seen in the dilemma of choosing between one of these three types of drugs could be running a high risk that would be reflected in your pocket, in time to recover from his illness and even in the very fact that it could get complicated.
The price difference between them is radical because it is rare to find cases where a drug while it costs 260 pesos brand equivalent only about 45 pesos, just under a fifth. The first question that comes to mind is if they are equal, ie whether it can be trusted to the extent the expected results of certain drugs.
To begin it is necessary to establish some differences from the very name by which substances are on the market. Let’s go to the most elemental.
According to the dictionary of the Real Academia de la Lengua Spanish, the word “similar” is an adjective meaning “having a resemblance or analogy, which leads us to find that” similarity “, in turn, suggests something like or something.
This also provides respected source of such significance as the term “imitation” and if that’s not enough, this latter phrase refers to “an object to copy or imitate another, usually more valuable.”
With the reform of the General Health Law, published on May 7, 1997, was that “medicinal products and marketing can be identified by their generic names and distinctive, that is, that doctors prescribe containing the active substance and not the brand. The generic identification is mandatory. ”
So what is a generic drug?, You may ask. Well, according to the Rules of Inputs for Health, which was published on February 4 in l998, the definition is as follows:
“The interchangeable generic drugs are those with the same medicinal product or drug substance and pharmaceutical form, with equal strength or power, which uses the same route of administration and with the same or comparable specifications pharmacopoeias, which after complied with the tests referred to the regulations, has found that the profiles of the dissolution or bioavailability, or other parameters, as the case may be, are equivalent to the innovator product or reference product and is registered in the Catalog Drug generic medicines and is identified by its generic name. ”
In other words, in simplest terms, a generic drug interchangeability (GI) should be equivalent to a trademark or patent for its strength, security, performance, quality, effect on the body and long lasting in the blood, as says the Federal Commission for Protection Against Health Risks (COFEPRIS)
In theory the health sector require pharmacological industry that generic medicines are subject to studies that find that they can be used in place of the patent. This is evidence that firms should practice or specialized institutions known as authorized third parties, outside laboratories to the Health Department as to manufacturers, to avoid any of these act as judge and jury.
Desirability of this measure is that the studies are not handled and the results are real, verifiable and that can be measured. Under the regulations, each substance that passes these filters are incorporated into the Catalog of Interchangeable Generic Drugs. To date we have made at least fifteen updates to take a day.
Expensive is not necessarily better
COFEPRIS at its website, said that each drug has no patent in all cases a generic. This is because the law protects the patents of the new formulas developed by the companies that made the investigation. Until it is expired, other companies can start selling the generic version if it meets the requirements listed above.
Create a new drug involves the investment of several hundred million dollars in costs of technology and research can be extended up to fifteen years, before a substance onto the innovative pharmaceutical market. An estimated ten thousand compounds are studied and tested previously.
For these reasons it is less expensive because generic manufacturers do not have to investigate, or generate the drugs from the start, which reduces significantly the cost of the product and can reach the population at prices more affordable.
Now, there are other realities that can not be ignored in terms of medications and to think that you should make a decision. One is that health is also a very complex market in which there is through strong economic interests at all levels, involving human variables such as subjective preferences, and approaches are very particular of health personnel, and the patient or relatives, in many cases, those who come to them when things seem to be filled prescriptions.
The disease also is a business
There are estimates of what it represents, in monetary terms, the trade in drugs. It is estimated that the value of the Mexican market skirted the 9.300 billion dollars, most of Latin America increased from leaving Brazil in second place with about 5.000 million. Of course, there are enormous interests at stake in that game is not only limited to the immediate environment but also have global reach.
In this country gave rise to 45 thousand direct jobs and 100 thousand indirect, over twenty thousand, according to figures from INEGI and the National Association of Pharmacies.
At present G.I. represent less than five percent of the total market, while the most optimistic scenarios suggest that the participation becomes 30% by 2011 with the modifications are implemented to the General Health Law.
Meanwhile, in a couple of years should be marketed only in Mexico or patent medicines also identified as the so-called innovative and generic medicines. Laboratories which sell similar products are in the process of submission to all the evidence leading to their approval, according to the rules, to be discharged as GI
Meanwhile, the controversy remains on the table about the effectiveness of such drugs. Studies conducted by researchers at recognized universities such as UNAM-tested quality products that yielded mixed results in over half of the studied samples.
With all the checks that there is generic beyond reasonable doubt nor by specialists who appeal to the technological support behind the innovative product or patent. And if that fails, a generic substance would result in more time for therapy and a higher cost to the patient or their relatives.
One element to consider the usefulness of generic drugs is that in most clinics and hospitals in the public sector will continue to therapies based on the basic tables and thus are achieving positive results, as in the treatment of diseases with great presence in the population and control of diabetes, hypertension, care of respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses among others.
Needless to say, with the generic handling of substances are found and recovered patients with a better quality of life expectancy.
It should be noted also that the differences in the prices that presents a framework for his GI found to be abysmal. There are clear that drugs are sold to the public in pharmacies in 80, L90, 140 and 260 pesos or more, when the presentation equivalent cost unbranded 15, l8, 36 and 45 pesos in the same order.
Therefore, since last year (2007) is now mandatory that prescriptions contain the name of the generic product is prescribed and only to approach the issue of who will add the brand as a suggestion under Article 226 of the General Health Law.