Generic Drugs Vs. Branded: Here Is How A Doctor Is Putting Both Medicines To The Test

Last week, the National Medical Commission (NMC) put on hold a controversial regulation that made it mandatory for doctors to prescribe generic drugs to patients, failing which they could penalised and even their license to practice may be suspended for a particular period.

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What is the opposition to generic drugs?

The Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2023, which were published on August 2, was put on hold after strong protests by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), arguing that the move was not feasible because of the uncertainty about their quality.

According to the USFDA, a generic drug or generic medicine is a medication created to be the same as an already marketed brand-name drug in dosage form, safety, strength, route of administration, quality, performance characteristics, and intended use.

Generic drugs manufacturing in India

India is the world's largest manufacturer of generic medicines, producing 20% of the global supply, according to the government's Economic Survey.

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But their quality has been questionable, and in recent months, some Indian-made generic drugs have been in the eye of the storm in many countries.

That is because generic drugs don't go through the same quality and safety checks that a pharma company that invents a new medicine has to put their product through.

Since the generic drug manufacturer follows the original company's formula, they only have to provide evidence that their drug is similar and do not have to do trials to show the drug is effective.

Doctor puts generic and branded drugs to test

As the debate over generic vs. branded drugs continues, Dr. Cyriac Abby Philips, a Kerala-based hepatologist and clinician-scientist, put them to the test.

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"We collected 2 commonly prescribed medicines: Generic versions of Metformin for diabetes and Atorvastatin for high cholesterol, which were taken by a person for 4 months, without any clinical benefit. After shifting to branded versions of both, the person now has fully controlled diabetes and cholesterol state in one months time," Dr. Philips, who goes by the name @theliverdoc on X, wrote.

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Recently the National Medical Commission (NMC) India, passed new guidelines for doctors that mandated them to prescribe only generic and not branded drugs. If doctors were to prescribe original branded drugs, then they would be punished.¡­

¡ª TheLiverDoc (@theliverdr) August 30, 2023

"The two sets of medicines were retrieved and sent to a top level drugs testing lab which will test quality of these generic and branded versions of both medicines and provide us a transparent report," he wrote further.

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According to Dr. Philips, he spent Rs 35,000 from his pocket to get the seven medicines tested, and the results will be available soon.

"We will try and focus on quality of modern medicines now and this small testing will give us an idea. If our findings are startling, then we wish to move ahead with a fully "peoples funded" project where the public themselves can help us fund the largest medicine quality testing project in the world," he added.

Dr. Philips, who has a huge following on social media has also been using his reach to spread awareness about modern medicine and also fight unscientific and unproven medical practices.

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