Are generic medications as good as their brand name counterparts?

December 4, 2008

The answer is yes.

Are generic medications as good as their brand name counterparts? I’ve mentioned previously that there should be little reason to prescribe brand name cardiovascular medications. One of the few exceptions is if there are no generics in a given class of drugs. Angiotensin receptor blockers would be an example.

A systemic review showed that there were few differences in clinical outcomes when generic and brand name medications were compared.

It is interesting to note that in the individual studies, the authors gave a negative conclusion, perhaps illustrating how they were influenced by pharmaceutical funding.

Generics work. Giving a positive first impression is important, as internist Matthew Mintz comments that “if a patient doesn’t think a medications is going to work, there is at least a 30% chance that it won’t.”



Related posts:

  1. Are generic drugs truly equivalent to brand name medications?
  2. Paying doctors off to use generic medications
  3. My take: NPs, solving health care, generics vs brand name drugs
  4. Generics versus brand-name drugs
  5. Seniors, generics and brand name medications
  6. Pre-authorizations for generic medications
  7. How building your brand can improve your medical practice


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{ 1 comment }

1 Melinda Wenner December 9, 2008 at 5:50 pm

I may be wrong, but I thought generic drugs were chemically identical to their brand name counterparts. If so, why would there be any discussion about efficacy differences?

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