Generic Medicines For The Treatment Of Erectile Dysfunction

The most popular oral medicine for the treatment of erectile dysfunction is undoubtedly Viagra the blue pill from Pfizer, which uses Sildenafil Citrate to block the PDE 5 enzyme and cause an erection. Since Viagra is a hugely successful drug other companies wanted a piece of action. They developed different chemicals to block the PDE 5 enzyme and created new drugs like Cialis which uses the chemical Tadalafil and Levitra which uses Vardenafil.

The indications and contraindications of all these drugs is more or less the same, so is their function.

The huge popularity of all these drugs urged other companies to come up with similar drugs .These drugs are called Generic Medicines.

The term generic is used to refer to products that are chemically identical to the original, but are sold under another name.

Generic medicines are legitimate medicines but cost a lot less than the branded ones. The main difference is in the name and the price tag. Brand name pills usually have their unique colour shape and logo which their generic counterparts cannot duplicate as they have a registered trademark.

Generic drugs are as reliable as the brand name pills, as they are tested as per the standards set by the FDA. They cost cheaper than the branded medicines because they hardly spend any money on research and marketing. All the research is done by the brand name companies. The manufacturers of generic medicines use the chemical used by the brand name companies and produce similar drugs at a cheaper rate. Another factor is that most of these companies are situated off shore where labour is much cheaper, and most of the marketing is done on line.

There is a wrong notion among people that since generic medicines are cheaper their performance is not as good as the branded medicines. These drugs are equally good, because they are not allowed into the market unless they meet the standard requirements laid down by the FDA.

44% of all drugs manufactured in the US alone have a generic equivalent. An evaluation conducted by the USA, FDA indicates that because of the use of generic drugs patients can save up to 52% on medical bills. And the drug costs can fall up to 14% per day.

Generic drugs cannot be patented. Just because they do not possess a patent it does not mean that they are anyway less reliable than their branded counterparts.

A manufacturer patents his products to protect himself from other producers, who may use his research matter to produce the same product. This would result in huge losses to the original company as they would have spent a lot of money on research. Patenting a product gives the manufacturer exclusive rights to produce a drug for a certain period of time. Generic equivalent of this medicine can be produced legally after the patent expires. If anyone tries to take advantage of a patented product before its patent expires it is considered illegal activity.

The length of applied patents for drugs in the US is 20 years including the time spent on clinical trial and testing. The patent process is not exclusive to the US. There are different standards of patenting in different countries.


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