THE price of medicine is considered one of the most significant obstacles for anyone wanting to receive proper medical treatment. After all, who would not want to be cured?

And with more and more consumers clamoring for lower-priced medicines, the emergence of generic drugs has become a welcome development.

A generic drug may be defined as copy of the branded or innovator drug. In other words, this particular drug has been proven to be similar in strength, purity, potency, dosage form, content uniformity, and disintegration time (i.e. in the stomach) as the innovator drug it copied.

The look and price should be their only difference. Interestingly, its much lower price led many people to wonder if the quality and the effectiveness of a generic drug have been compromised. As their reasoning goes, you get what you pay for.

No worry

?As long as that generic drug came from a reputable manufacturer that has followed standards of good manufacturing practices, consumers should not worry needlessly,? assured Mito Raagas, director of Winthrop Pharmaceuticals Philippines Inc., a manufacturer of generic drugs including those for type 2 diabetes (Winthrop glimepiride), the prevention of second stroke or heart attack (Winthrop clopidogrel) and hypertension (Winthrop amlodipine).

He explained that the generic drugs? much lower price is due to the fact that its manufacturers no longer have to spend for research, development, marketing and promotions, which are very costly.

As the patent?which generally lasts 10 to 20 years?nears expiration, other drug manufacturers could now apply for permission to make and sell a generic version.

?And without the startup costs for development of the drug, generic drug manufacturers could afford to make and sell their product at a much lower price,? added Raymond Bejerano, Winthrop product manager.

Bejerano explained that as the generic arm of sanofi-aventis Philippines, Winthrop enjoys the advantage of having direct access to a world-class research and development organization of one of the world?s leading pharmaceutical firms.

?This enables Winthrop to guarantee that only the highest standards of quality of our products not only in terms of efficacy and safety, but also in terms of strict manufacturing quality control,? added Aristotle Geronimo, Winthrop?s marketing manager.

Complex process

Dr. May Pagunsan, medical director of sanofi-aventis Philippines added that developing and manufacturing generic drugs is a complex process.

?A generic drug manufacturer must be able to show authorities that it uses the same active ingredient in the same quantity as that found in the innovator drug. It must also prove that the generic product demonstrates, in the human body, a rate of absorption of the active ingredient and levels of concentration in the blood similar to the innovator,? Pagunsan said.

But while laws require the generic drugs to duplicate exactly the active ingredient and dosage of the innovator drugs, these same laws however, allow manufacturers to use different fillers, binders, colors and flavorings, otherwise known as inactive ingredients.

This can sometimes be the source of problems because while it is extremely unlikely for an inactive ingredient to cause toxic effects, a person may develop allergic reaction to one of the inactive ingredients.

And even if there is no allergic reaction, an individual?s body may have grown so accustomed to the original drug that it will respond differently to the new drug that have a different (no matter how slight) active/inactive mixture.

?This could be our advantage because we are able to make products that are exact copies of the original and be able to sell them at a price that even poor Filipinos may be able to buy,? said Raul Castillo, Winthrop national sales manager.