THE ROLL OF GENERIC DRUGS– QUALITY AND ECONOMIC ASPECT IN TREATMENT

Generic drugs have an important role in ensuring the efficacy, safety, and especially the economic aspect of drug use. A generic drug is a pharmaceutical product, usually intended to be interchangeable with an innovator product manufactured without a licence from the innovator company and marketed after the expiry date of the patent or other exclusive rights. At present, unlikely FDA’s regulations, Vietnam’s law does not require all generic drugs launching in the market to prove the bioequivalence, the same efficient and safe as innovator drugs. Because of the rapid growth of the domestic pharmaceutical market, the standard and quality of generic drugs compared with innovator drugs have to be consolidated and proved through trials of bioequivalence, then building the faith of professionals and patients in using generic drugs. Thus the expansion of number and improving quality of the bioequivalence assessment centers become an important task of Vietnam pharmaceutical industry in the context of integration with the global pharmaceutical industry. Key words: generic drugs, innovator drugs, patent, bioequivalence, treatment.