Generic drugs online

Source: Sunday Business Post

Date: 15-Aug-2011

Author: Susan Mitchell

New legislation to promote much greater use of generic drugs is expected to come before the Oireachtas in the autumn. The Department of Health is finalising the heads of a bill and a spokesman said that the Minister for Health intended to submit the legislation to the Oireachtas in the autumn.

Former health minister Mary Harney announced plans in 2010 to bring forward legislation aimed at tackling the state's soaring drugs bill in June 2010.

Harney said then she expected to have the legislation ready early this year, but progress has been slow. The delay has resulted in severe criticism from the Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers in Ireland.

Under the new system, pharmacists will be obliged to tell public and private patients if there are cheaper generic medicines available when they hand in prescriptions to be filled. Generic medicines are identical copies of original brand name, or proprietary, medicines.

In addition, under a new system called reference pricing, lists are to be drawn up by an expert group within the HSE of all branded and generic drugs that have the same active ingredients, and that could, therefore, be used interchangeably.

The state will pay only for the cheapest drug for a medical card holder, no matter which one is prescribed. If a patient wants a more expensive product (either the original brand product or a higher priced generic) then the patient would have to pay the difference between the reference price and the price of the particular product.

This is a system known as Phase One reference pricing.

The per capita expenditure on pharmaceuticals in Ireland is the highest of all EU countries, according to the OECD's 2010 Health Data report.

Pharmaceutical spend accounted for 17.3 per cent of state's total healthcare costs.

Less than one in five prescribed drugs are generic in Ireland, compared with four in five in Britain. In 2008, Ireland spent €82 million on generics. Another €227 million was spent on proprietary drugs where there was a generic equivalent.