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Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Generic Medicines Online at Online Pharmacies



Buying medicines online has a great number of advantages associated with it, but the biggest advantage of them all probably would be the fact that one can easily avail generic medicines at cheap rates through such online pharmacies. This is an advantage that weighs considerably above the contemporary method of buying one’s medicines over the counter, or by OTC, as it is more familiarly known. Furthermore, the fact that generic medicines are being sold like hot cakes online, speaks volumes about their market share and the liking that people have taken to these kinds of drugs.

Generic Medicines

The name generic in the term ‘generic medicines’ refers to the nature of these medicines, i.e. these medicines are sold to the customers without a brand name. For people wondering why this is so, it’s simply because these drugs are not protected by a trademark, like their branded counterparts. However, the most important thing to note about generic medicines is that they are the same as branded drugs. The both have same pharmacological functions, have the same kind of effects on their consumers, and also share the way these are consumed. The only points of difference between them are their appearance and their price.

State and government run drug-monitoring associations like the FDA; prohibit the appearance of generic drugs being the same as branded ones. They do this so that the users can easily differentiate between the two kinds. However, the issue of price difference between these two types is an entirely another matter.

Manufacturing of branded medicines usually entails extensive research and work on studying the feasibility of the drug, experimenting it on various lab specimens and species of organisms of different strata, getting the drug approved and licensed by the concerned authorities, etc. Measures like these often involve extreme costs, and a painstakingly big time period to be fulfilled as requisites before the drug is officially launched in the market. This is why branded drugs are marked much higher than the generic medicines.

One might argue that since generic medicines are cheaper than the branded ones, and require very little time to be made available in the market; these medicines are manufactured in sub-standard settings. Well, the truth might be a bit far from your imagination, as most companies that are in the regular practice of manufacture generic medicines, are also the same ones that manufacture the branded medicines. What this means is that the facilities these companies use to manufacture both variants are the same, it’s just that these companies save themselves a lot of resources like time, money, labor, etc. in the manufacture of generic medicines, which enables them to make considerable profits from the process.

Popular Choice

It’s not just the drug manufacturing companies that like to sell generic medicines to their customers, but the patrons themselves insist on purchasing generic medicines. There are a number of reasons why people go for generic medicines, but the cream of these reasons has to be the two factors of price and availability. Most people using generic medicines opine that such drugs avail them the benefits of a branded medicine at a much lesser cost, which is what makes these medicines desirable. Secondly, generic medicines are easily available and accessible in all conditions. A branded medicine will only be available for consumption till the time its patent doesn’t expire, but once this happens, further sale of branded drugs would be deemed illegal and a punishable offence. However, the generic drugs are associated with no such constraint, and hence, they’re the popular choice of medicine consumers all over the world.

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