Have you ever got a doubt while you are searching for medical shops on the road? Remember you might have found “Generic medical store” & “Medical stores” in Telugu “Generic medical shop” and “ide mandula shop” boards.
So, let’s know what is the difference between a GENERIC MEDICAL STORE & NORMAL MEDICAL STORE…
Generally, when medicine is prepared in the laboratory, to come into the market, it has to undergo many procedures and should get approved by FDA (Food and Drug Authority). So, after the drug gets approved, the inventor of it can have a patent on the drug. Usually, many multinational companies invent these drugs and will get the patent under their brand name.
Generic drugs contain the same active ingredient as Branded ones. The branded drugs companies might have spent a lot on marketing to publicize their drug where generic drugs do not need any publicity as they don’t have any patent on their name. Hence branded drugs are costly as compared to generic drugs also the quality of generic drugs is questionable.
If you have been taking medication using a branded drug, and if they caused some ill-effects to your body, then you can directly file a case on the company. But, it is not the same with generic medicines.
Of course, generic medicine should also undergo the same procedures and approvals for coming into the market as the branded ones, but they don’t have any brand names on the tablets. So, we may not know the inventor of the drugs. Till now there are no such examples to show that generic drugs do not function as much as branded drugs.
The cost of generic medicines is 20 – 30% less than that of the branded medicine. Because, the companies spend so much on advertisements, and collect them from the customers. Even, when you go to hospitals, doctors mostly prescribe branded medicine.
This is because the medical representatives suggest the doctors and they will be getting some amount share in that (This does not apply to all the doctors).
So, from now, whenever you see a GENERIC MEDICAL STORE, buy the medicine there but, before that ask the shopkeeper whether the medicine is FDA approved or not. Even for a branded drug, the patent lasts for a particular period of time. When this period ends, their formula can be used by anyone & thus it becomes a Generic Medicine.
For those persons who rely on medicines daily, it is better to opt for generic medicine through which one can save around half of the amount they are spending when brought from other medical stores.
Hope you got a clear idea between these two. Please give your suggestion and ratings out of 10 so that we could improvise our work.
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