Generic
Subtitle: the unbranding of modern medicine
By: Jeremy A. Greene
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 354
ISBN-13: 9781421414935
Subjects: Generic drugs; History
Description: Reviews the history of the generic drug industry, how they attempt to market a product that purports to be exactly the same as a better known one, what are the regulations protecting consumers, and whether or not generics actually are chemically and therapeutically identical. Small differences in binders or production methods can create two chemically similar drugs, with different effects. Greene also looks at how the explosive growth of the generic drug industry over the last few decades has impacted not only the pharmaceutical industry, but the future of the health care industry as a whole.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The same but not the same; title: What's in a name? Ordering the world of cures ; The generic as critique of the brand; title: No such thing as a generic drug? Drugs anonymous ; Origins of a self-effacing industry ; Generic specificity; title: The sciences of similarity. Contests of equivalence ; The significance of differences; title: Laws of substitution. Substitution as vice and virtue ; Universal exchange; title: Paradoxes of generic consumption. Liberating the captive consumer ; Generic consumption in the clinic, pharmacy, and supermarket The generic alternative. Science and politics of the "me-too" drug ; Preferred drugs, public and private ; The global generic; title: The crisis of similarity.