General practitioners still have little faith in the generic drug: they are not fully convinced of its therapeutic efficacy, but they prescribe it, albeit with some reservations, to patients who, for their part, begin to request it more frequently. This is the result of the Merqurio Study Center survey carried out in the last week of April on a sample of 204 general practitioners throughout Italy.

To the question "the equivalent has the same therapeutic efficacy as the branded drug", only 37.6% of the professionals questioned answered yes, 57.4% do not trust (37.4%) or do so only in some cases (25.9%), while 4.9% cannot answer.

A fact partially denied by the indications on the prescriptions, probably the effect of the various campaigns in favor of the non-branded drug recently promoted by the ministry and by the local ASL: if there is an 'irreducible' 42,6% who writes the branded drug on the prescription, the 57,4% goes in the opposite direction: the 38,9% of white coats specifies only the name of the active ingredient or the active ingredient followed by the name of the manufacturing company (18 ,5%).

It must be said that the majority of patients (64.8%) generally appear to be well disposed towards the equivalent, with a tip of the 21% that "often requires it" and a 43.8% that accepts it but "only in some cases". However, a hard core of 35,2% patients still resists who absolutely do not want to know about taking a generic.

The response from doctors to the question on the recent price cuts for expired patent drugs in force since April 15 was more fragmented: 23.4% claims that the discounts will make more equivalents sold, for 19.1% "it may be" against 19.75% who deems these cuts useless "because they will not serve to increase generic sales". The 15,4% is not informed. However, the cuts for doctors' 37% will compromise the quality of the generic, to which must be added another 32.7% which admits this possibility.

(BDC May 10, 2011 – Pharmakronos)

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

"Generic drugs penalized, big brands are favored again"

  THE CASE In Lazio there is a clash over the ticket for generic drugs. The first stone was cast by the IDV senator, Stefano Pedica. «For a week - denounces the secretary of the dipietristi of Lazio - under the deafening silence of those who do not want to let people know