Moving from branded drugs to generic drugs can be a disconcertingly problematic affair. Ideally, you should just move from purchasing a drug made by a particular company to one made by many companies. There should be no significant changes in the chemical composition.
There should be no extra side effects, no harmful consequences and certainly no deterioration in health. The only issue that you have to watch out for is consequences of increase or reduction in dosage due to the shift.
This problem can be overcome by focusing on the quantum of dosage that used to enjoy in a single pill of the branded version compared with dosage offered by a single pill of the generic drug.
However, the issue can be problematic enough for people to question the reason and rationale behind generic drugs. Why they are even needed? What is the harm in offering lifelong patent to pharmaceutical company that invented the drug? For starters, lifelong patent is not good for efficiency.
If you are sure of business from a specific product for eternity, would you have any incentive to search further and improve the same? Obviously not.
However, when you are competing with half a dozen other manufacturers for the same marketplace, you will obviously try harder to win over customers. There have been numerous instances where manufacturers of branded drugs offered their patented products at low cost to win over the public.
They do so to create good brand recall amongst customers to ensure their version of generic also become high selling products. By compromising on profits from branded drugs, the company succeeds in capturing the generic drug market. This is a win all situation for everybody.
Customers have access to best drugs at affordable prices. Hence, from the perspective of improvement of research to improvement of competitiveness in the pharmaceutical market – presence of generic drugs is essential.