title: The experiences of implementing generic medicine policy in eight countries: A review and recommendations for a successful promotion of generic medicine use.
abstract: Generic medicines are clinically interchangeable with original brand medicines and have the same quality, efficacy and safety profiles. They are, nevertheless, much cheaper in price. Thus, while providing the same therapeutic outcomes, generic medicines lead to substantial savings for healthcare systems. Therefore, the quality use of generic medicines is promoted in many countries. In this paper, we reviewed the role of generic medicines in healthcare systems and the experiences of promoting the use of generic medicines in eight selected countries, namely the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), Sweden, Finland, Australia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand. The review showed that there are different main policies adopted to promote generic medicines such as generic substitution in the US, generic prescribing in the UK and mandatory generic substitution in Sweden and Finland. To effectively and successfully implement the main policy, different complementary policies and initiatives were necessarily introduced. Barriers to generic medicine use varied between countries from negative perceptions about generic medicines to lack of a coherent generic medicine policy, while facilitators included availability of information about generic medicines to both healthcare professionals and patients, brand interchangeability guidelines, regulations that support generic substitution by pharmacists, and incentives to both healthcare professionals and patients.
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Mohamed Azmi
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Hassali
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Alian A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Alrasheedy
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McLachlan
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia, SA 5000, Australia.
authors.forename: Tuan Anh
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: Discipline of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Saleh Karamah
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Al-Tamimi
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmacy, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar.
authors.forename: Mohamed Izham Mohamed
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Ibrahim
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Hisham
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Aljadhey
keywords: Generic medicines; Generic policy; Generic substitution; Health system; Pharmacists; Physicians