Parliament Healthcare Committee Member Extols Virtues of Generic Drugs

Due to the increasing prices of drugs, the Ministry of Healthcare has announced the introduction of Generic drugs on Georgia’s pharmaceutical market.

Member of the Healthcare Committee of Georgian Parliament, Gigi Tsereteli, made comments in this regard:

“When a new drug is created, it has a specific patent expiration date, in which additional production and licensing is not permitted. When that expires, other companies have the right to produce the same medicine under a different name. Creating a new brand drug costs millions of dollars, as it needs multi-stage experiments and high class scientists”.

“Generic drugs do not differ from expensive brand medicines. Generics are popular because of their low prices and identical quality- they are made using the same substances,” Tsereteli added.

The current guidelines are already available, according to which insurance companies and family doctors show a preference for Generics.

Considering the origin country of Generics is the one major problem that patients and doctors face, however, experts believe that the origin of the drug does not measure the quality.

Production is diversified due to a modern global economy. The US and many other countries produce drugs in Asia and China, where the workforce is cheap to employ but equipment is the same quality as it is in developed countries. India also has a rapidly growing economy and produces high quality goods. Saying that drugs produced in China or in India are of low quality is false. Large companies have high and reliable systems.

On Georgia’s Pharmaceutical Market, 70% of Drugs are Generic

Pharmaceutical companies have brought Generic drugs to the market before and will continue to do so. If only original and brand medicines existed on our market, prices would be much higher. For this reason some countries have banned original drugs and are oriented to Generic drugs- by doing so they have decreased expenses.

Generics have their positive sides in terms of cost. That’s why bringing new ones is not an issue. We need to expand the spectrum.

Today, on Georgia’s pharmaceutical market 70% of drugs are Generic and only 30% are brand drugs. Generics cost 20-30 percent less than the original drugs. The State should not interfere in the business and adhere to this principle; many of the more of developed countries made such a decision before us that if a state buys drugs, they must be Generic.

Yet, the quality control of drugs should be of a high level. Therefore, in the near future, a laboratory of drug quality control is expected to be opened in Georgia.”

KetI Didebulidze