E-DRUG: Same tablet and company but different name (2)
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[Stein makes an important point: Industry doesn't like parallel import in
Europe, but has failed tostop it through the courts. However, there are
many marketing tricks left to make parallel import more difficult:
different shape, color, but now also different brandname. Is this not not
confusing to patients, and could this not lead to medication errors? In
this era of harmonisation, industry chooses to disharmonize if it is in
its
financial interest. What can EU do about this? WB]
If prescribers make it a habit to prescribe exclusively by generic names,
such
marketing tricks would be completely irrelevant, and the industry might stop
playing these consumer hostile tricks too.
Thus, what the EU could do about this would be encouraging their doctors to
prescribe by generic name.
Horst
Dr Horst Herb
Principal, Dorrigo Medical Centre
Coordinator, http://www.drugref.org
subscriptions@gnumed.net
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