OBJECTIVE Generic medications are associated with reduced perceived effectiveness, increased perceived adverse effects, and increased rates of nonadherence compared with brand-name medications. This study examined the effect of an apparent medication formulation change on subjective and objective measures of medication effectiveness and medication side effects. METHODS Sixty-two university st...

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between performance and use of brand terms in the key phrases that link advertisements to searcher queries. We use data that consist of more than 2.5 million daily records from a key word advertising campaign of a major U.S. retailer. The campaign spanned nearly four years, involved approximately $8 million in advertising cost, and generated more than ...

PURPOSE Compulsory generic substitution of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) may lead to adverse effects in epilepsy patients because of seizure recurrence or increased toxicity. The study objectives were (a) to quantify and compare the switchback rates from generic to brand-name AEDs versus non-AEDs, and (b) to assess clinical implications of switching from branded Lamictal to generic lamotrigine (LT...

BACKGROUND A great deal of previous work on the pharmacoeconomics of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug abuse indicates that as cost decreases, abuse increases and vice versa. The application of these cost principles to the abuse of prescribed medications is largely unknown. In this paper we assessed whether the introduction of generic products in the U.S. increased the therapeutic use and illic...

CONTEXT The Medical Council of India urges doctors to prescribe generic drugs as far as possible. The Indian Medical Association had responded earlier saying that it requires guarantees on the quality of generic forms of drugs. Although no published scientific reports are available on the issue of therapeutic inequivalence, unconfirmed clinician accounts and newspaper reports of therapeutic ine...

Globally, the annual number of new infections among children (0-14 years) has almost halved since 2010 with a 47% reduction in new HIV cases.1 Since 1995, an estimated 1.6 million new HIV infections among children have been averted due to the provision of antiretroviral medicines (ARVs) to women living with HIV during pregnancy and breastfeeding. The vast majority of these infections (1.3 milli...

This article refers to:RETRACTED ARTICLE: Attention-Grabbing Power of Branded vs. Unbranded Packaging

Essential medicines are those that satisfy the priority healthcare needs of the population and are available at all times in adequate amounts, in the appropriate dosage forms with assured quality and at a price the individual and community can afford. Essential medicines are selected with due regard to disease prevalence, efficacy, safety and cost effectiveness. In most developing countries, th...