Walking down the grocery store aisle many of us have probably heard someone say, Ewh! Dont buy that its the generic brand. By generic, I mean the off brand or a copy of the brand name product. For example, a common brand-name cookie such as the Oreo is produced by Nabisco. There is a generic version out known as great value, which many people probably have seen on the shelves in America. Yes, one can argue and it may be true that food products that are the off brand dont quite measure up to the brand name in taste. However, when one is shopping in the pharmacy aisles, this is not true. Brand name manufacturers have gone to extremes of deceiving doctors, pharmacists, and many other Americans into accepting that their drugs are safer, more effective, greater quality, and made in better facilities, than the generic brands, when in reality, they are no different. .
Consumers often question why generic drugs are much cheaper than the brand-name version. Well, as reported by Consumers Union and Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs, generic drugs are cheaper because the generic companies dont have the start-up costs of advertising, producing, and researching the product. When on the market, every brand-name drug contains a patent. As this patent expires, usually within ten years, manufacturers can sell generic versions with approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or FDA (Generic Drugs: The Same). Because the brand-name is already known and what it can do, generic manufactures will not have the beginning costs to get the drug on the market, therefore, they will be able to afford to sell the product at a much lower price. Sometimes, the price goes down not only to zero start-up costs, but also because of the competition with other generic manufacturers that are now selling the same drug. Think about this situation. If it wasnt for these cheaper versions of generic medications, most people wouldnt be able to afford the necessary drugs to keep them alive.