It is surprising that Dr. Antonio Clavenna, Pharmacologist, researcher at the Maternal-Child Health Laboratory of the "Mario Negri" Pharmacological Research Institute in Milan where he is responsible for the Pharmacoepidemiology Unit and where he deals with the evaluation of the rational use of drugs in children, can use/report words like “grossly” to describe topics very delicate ones that have to do with the use of generic drugs in children. We would also like to know from which bibliographic source it draws this near-safety on drugs generics used in paediatrics given that the data are practically non-existent precisely because the law does not provide for the inclusion of children in study protocols.
Plus the generic drug in Italy it does not allow savings for the National Health Service nor does it allow savings for the citizen.
– In the first case, because the State always pays the same price for both the generic and the relative expired patent brand. Generics are not, and will never be, a savings opportunity for the state as long as generics cost the same as drugs they have lost The patent (transparency lists).
– In the second case why the savings are made on the comparison between real prices that do not exist here. That is, the old price of the brand no longer exists but a new price of the expired patent brand that compares with the generic. Furthermore, savings have always been built, and continue to be built, on the comparison between identical products that we don't have here. Last May 2012, in a press release on the discussion of generic drugs occurred in the Senate, the parliamentary agency AGENPARL asserted that: “There are still several issues to be resolved to allow generic drugs to take off. From quality to therapeutic efficacy to replaceability…”. With these declarations – in the presence of former Minister Renato Balduzzi himself – it is difficult to sustain savings between products that are not the same. It should also be emphasized that the National Health System not only does not save with the generic, but spend more on less
