Onkológia 6/2013

Originator and generics drugs and oncologic practice

While most of the attention and spending in the oncology community has been focused on the remarkable scientific inventions of the newer targeted drugs, the open questions or problems with the older essential cancer drugs that are off patent, mostly generics and injectables, are less under interest. Use of generic medicines has been increasing in recent years, primarily as a cost saving measure in healthcare provision. Objective of this short review is to provide a description of what generic medicines are and how they differ, at a regulatory and legislative level, from originator medicines. There is also described the current situation on generics vs originator medicines in manufacturing, sales, distribution as well as open questions and problems in clinical practices, what could be particularly vulnerable in oncology.

Keywords: generics, originator medicines, generic substitution.