Did you know that "Ibumetin” doesn’t kill your pain, it is ibuprofen – an active substance that acts on the body?

For new medicine to go into market, companies have to do a complex and expensive research. When it is proven that the drug has the right quality and is effective and safe, they are registered as original medicine. After that, data about specific medicine is protected for at least 8-10 years.  After this time, other companies can also produce the same product – same active substance, dose and form. It’s called generic medicine. The new versions of the substance are a lot cheaper as their production didn’t require the complex development process. Some maybe even safer to use than the original, because after this 8 to 10 year period, it is possible to see if the drug affects any part of the body negatively and thus the generic medicine may be modified in a way that doesn’t impact the body in that way. Yet, people keep buying the original drug, because it is known better. Therefore, customers overpay for a product that has the same quality and effectiveness as other drugs with the same active ingredients. 

To change this, firstly, people have to know that every drug available in our market is reliable and tested. Secondly, legislation should be amended to sell drugs to people with the name of the active ingredient(s) on the packaging instead of the name of the manufacturer. Thirdly, every doctor should inform their patients that there other medicine  is available with the same active substance and the most expensive ones is just as good as the cheaper ones, because realization and production process sets a price not quality.

We should change the drug trade laws, because as 2016 statistics in Latvia show, even though the number of original drugs sold is at least a half less than the number of generic drugs, the income of original drug companies is 1.3 times higher than that of generic companies.