Generic medicine substitution and prescribing habits

What is generic medicine?
Generic medicine is equivalent to brand-name medicine. It contains the same active ingredients, strength, dosage form, safety, route of administration, and intended use as a branded product.

Is safety compromised?
Prior to registration, it is mandatory for the manufacturer to prove to the Medicines Control Council (MCC) of South Africa that their product equals the brand-name. There must be no significant difference in terms of the rate at which the drug dissolves and is absorbed. The MCC requires that all registered medicine meets the standards of safety, strength, purity and effectiveness. Generic drugs are not lower in quality than brand-name drugs.

Why are generic medicines cheaper than brand name medicines?
Generic pharmaceutical manufacturers are allowed to produce and sell generic drugs at a less costly price, after the patent on the brand-name drug has expired. The patent is applied to ensure that the original pharmaceutical manufacturer has exclusive rights to marketing the product for a specified period, thus recovering costs associated with expensive research and development steps.

When filing a prescription?
Generic prescribing is the prescription of a drug by a physician using the generic name. This leaves the choice of brand to the dispensing pharmacist in consultation with the consumer.

Generic substitution is a pharmacist-initiated act by which a different brand or an unbranded drug product is dispensed instead of a drug brand that was prescribed by the physician. This means substituting the same chemical entity in the same dosage form for one marketed by a different company. In generic substitution the pharmacist is required to obtain the member's informed consent prior to substitution. The member must be informed of the benefits of the alternative treatment.

Why generic substitution?
By using generic medicine, you can get more medicine within your benefit limit, avoid early exhaustion of your benefits and add to your pocket saving from co-payments. This is possible because generic medicines are generally between 20% and 40% lower in cost than the original brand medicines.

The need to manage and minimise costs has become increasingly important for healthcare systems in South Africa and across the world. In order to optimise cost expenditure, generic substitution is already used widely throughout the world. Generic substitution has a key role to play in the efficient allocation of financial resources for medicines. Aligned to the practice employed elsewhere in the medical scheme industry, GEMS applies generic reference pricing across all medicine benefit types.

Should you choose not to use generic alternatives available, you can ask your pharmacist to dispense the brand-name drug, and pay the difference between the brand-name price and the lowest generic cost alternative. Generic reference pricing will not affect members who have already switched to using generic medicines.