your healthcare. Around the rim
are various professionals: your
doctor who prescribes medications;
manufacturers who produce those
medications; and your pharmacist
who fills your prescriptions and
places the medications in your
treatments.
you take a medication provided
by the brand name company that
researched, developed, patented,
and brought the med to market or
a generic product provided by a
secondary company that began to
manufacture it after the original
patent expired.
The answers are as varied as the
people involved.
and generic -- look upon each other
with a respectful we-need-each-other
attitude.
and costly research and develop-
ment," says Dan Willard, manager of
investor relations and global commu-
nications for Perrigo Company, a
generic manufacturer, in Allegan.
"Those brand-name medications have
to exist or the generics won't."
name manufacturer Pfizer, whose
office is in Kalamazoo, echoes, "The
brand name or research-based phar-
maceutical industry has no problems
with generics. Many of our products
are no longer patent protected, and
we continue to make and market
those products."
Chambers is "customer choice."
sacred," says Chambers. "If the
generic is chosen by a doctor and
patient as the best treatment, then
that's the right choice. If the doctor
and patient believe the brand name
is the right choice, then that is the
treatment that should be pursued."
to the branded product, Willard
dismisses that as human nature.
"Some people believe that if the
generic is cheaper it can't be as
good," he says. "That's not true.
Pharmaceuticals are heavily
regulated by the FDA. We use the
same materials, suppliers, and
machinery. It's not a quality issue."
Pharmacy in Kalamazoo and
Schoolcraft, points out that even
though generics are made with the
same recipe as the original medi-
cations, some patients believe the
branded product is better. "If the
patient believes in the medicine, that
is what he or she will buy. If it makes
the patient feel good, that is what the
patient should be on. They have the
right to choose."
healthcare circle, says otherwise.
to substitute a generic medicine is
made outside the doctor-patient rela-
tionship and is based solely on cost.
than generics? "We have greater
overhead," Chambers states simply.
"We invest billions of dollars to
fund new medications, but generic
manufacturers have no research-and-
development costs. They simply take
the recipes, which are written in our
patents."
marketing rights for an out-of-patent
company's expenses. He adds that
generic manufacturers generally don't
pay for advertising and marketing
like the research-based manufac-
turers. But, he emphasizes, there is
no quality difference between the
brands and the generics. "The FDA's
very strict guidelines say that generic
medication has to enter the blood-
stream the same as the branded medi-
cation; it must react as fast and last as
long; it must have the same effect on
the body," he says.
that he calls "therapeutic substitu-
tion." This occurs when an insurance
company mandates the use of a
generic with a different molecular
structure rather than a branded
medicine that the doctor prefers.
"There are times," Chambers says,
"when a doctor may be required to
prescribe a treatment with a different
molecule simply because another
treatment has a generic alternative.
We have a serious issue with that.
The decision ought to be between the
doctor and the patient."
pivotal role -- that of having direct
contact with both the patient and
the medication as well as telephone
access to physicians. "It's important
that patients believe in their pharma-
cist," Graham claims. "We work to
have that kind of relationship where
customers come to us for answers."
cians -- general practitioners and
specialists -- begin to appear on a
patient's healthcare circle, each one
prescribing different medications
for a variety of ailments. "At certain
ages or in certain situations, we tend
to see more and more meds being
required. That's when it's necessary
that customers not be afraid to ask
questions," Graham says. "There may
be contraindications that are causing
sore eyes, dryness in the mouth,
sleepiness, or dizziness. We shouldn't
dismiss those signs; they are indi-
cations that a newly prescribed
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