- Joined
- Mar 21, 2023
generic drug companies are the reason most people can afford medicine in this hyper-inflated market.
I personally don't have any beef with generic drugs or their manufacturers.
But much to your point, these drugs and their producers are entirely focused on pricing rather than innovation.
They make relatively outdated drugs much cheaper & accessible. But there's also been a Walmart-ization effect on the generic drug industry where governments and insurers are constantly pressuring suppliers to compete on price by lowering the cost per dose a few pennies each round of negotiations for supply contracts.
This has led to the offshoring of older essential medicines & recurring drug shortages as the number of manufacturers making a product shrinks.
Pharmacies are continually changing their suppliers for better pricing, causing confusion with patients as the physical pills change in appearance frequently, who proceed to waste pharmacy & physician resources repeatedly accusing their providers of "giving them the wrong pills".
Many patients believe that different generic suppliers actually affect them physiologically, particularly low thyroid sufferers who will claim that one brand doesn't work as well as the other despite their lab tests returning the same.
The generic drug world is more industialist & corporate than it is healthcare or R&D.
It plays an important role, but it only exists in leeching off the other innovators and playing min/max pricing games.