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.
No comments:
Post a Comment