On GoodRx, you can buy 30 doses of Sinequan for about $10, but Silenor costs at least $100. But these are two names for exactly the same chemical.
Just because something contains the same active ingredient doesn’t mean that the same clinical effect happens. There’s more then just the active ingredient that goes into a drug as the Ranbaxy saga demonstrates very well. There’s no good quality control mechanism for generic drugs.
I do not think that is true, at least in Europe where hundreds of millions of people use generic drugs every day. In Germany, in the UK and in Austria a doctor will amost always prescribe a generic when available and people will often buy a generic over the counter. While sometimes too conservative, the very reason why we need the FDA, the EMA, et al. is exactly to make sure that generics* work well—and they almost always do, one cannot use rare counter examples to disprove that. Do we have any hard data to suggest that generics are somehow unsafe?
* i.e. not some Indian blackmarket knock-off that isn’t FDA/EMA approved
Do we have any hard data to suggest that generics are somehow unsafe?
As I said, the Ranbaxy saga. It shows that even when there’s a whistleblower from the manufacturer that tells the FDA that a manufacturer is fraudulent it takes the FDA years to do something about it.
* i.e. not some Indian blackmarket knock-off that isn’t FDA/EMA approved
The approval consists of believing the company that the studies they provide are true. The FDA doesn’t have subpoena power over Indian factories producing generics and it doesn’t do independent quality checking beyond believing the companies.
Just because something contains the same active ingredient doesn’t mean that the same clinical effect happens. There’s more then just the active ingredient that goes into a drug as the Ranbaxy saga demonstrates very well. There’s no good quality control mechanism for generic drugs.
I do not think that is true, at least in Europe where hundreds of millions of people use generic drugs every day. In Germany, in the UK and in Austria a doctor will amost always prescribe a generic when available and people will often buy a generic over the counter. While sometimes too conservative, the very reason why we need the FDA, the EMA, et al. is exactly to make sure that generics* work well—and they almost always do, one cannot use rare counter examples to disprove that. Do we have any hard data to suggest that generics are somehow unsafe?
* i.e. not some Indian blackmarket knock-off that isn’t FDA/EMA approved
As I said, the Ranbaxy saga. It shows that even when there’s a whistleblower from the manufacturer that tells the FDA that a manufacturer is fraudulent it takes the FDA years to do something about it.
The approval consists of believing the company that the studies they provide are true. The FDA doesn’t have subpoena power over Indian factories producing generics and it doesn’t do independent quality checking beyond believing the companies.