Generics & Brands

Most of drugs are available as brands and generics. After all, what is the difference? Is the drug marketed under a famous brand name really better than its generic analogue? Comparing their prices, one may jump to conclusion that brands are better, as a quality product has to be more expensive... But why do brands cost more? The answer is very easy. It takes time to make a new medication. Pharmaceutical companies invest lots of money into developing new formulas and improving the old ones. Then, advertising and promotion... It costs pretty sums of money, too. When a company at last gets a new drug, it wants to make the invested money work. It wants to make some profit. Therefore brands cannot usually be cheap. At least, in their first years on the market. And the companies' rights are guarded by licence agreements. Even if another company learns the formula and technology of manufacturing the drug, it is not able to start selling the medication of her own without violating the law...

But there is a way out! When a brand name cannot be used, and the licence for using it costs too much, a generic form of the medication can be produced and put on the market.

What is a generic name? It is usually the name of the active substance in the drug. It may be not so well-known and popular as the brand name, but it is the very same matter with the very same properties. With the only slight difference: this name is not usually protected by copyright. Really, what copyright can be found about international names of chemical substances, such as fexofenadine hydrochloride? You have never heard of such word combination? Perhaps, Allegra speaks louder? Well, in fact, they are the same medicine used to treat seasonal allergic rhinitis! Apart from their names (the generic and the brand one), the only difference between them is the price. The very same packet of pills bought as Allegra will cost nearly twice as much as the packet of Fexofenadine Hydrochloride!

We are staring this blog to make you more familiar with some products by Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., an American company founded in 1961 and famous now for its high-quality generic versions of well-known brands (that include Fexofenadine HCl, too! :)