Pharmaceutical is developing fast on the wheels of technology. Brand-named drug companies bring out new drugs and medicines continuously in the pharmaceutical market These drug makers want to make their investment profitable so they go all in to sell their drugs. After a certain period of time, generic drug companies launch the same  products into the market and bring down the prices. This cycle maintains equilibrium in the pharmaceutical market. But this isn’t as easy as it seems on the outside. For many years now due to increased competition, wars between generic drug companies and brand-named drug companies are prevalent in the pharmaceutical market. 

Brand-name drug companies are always trying to hold off generic drugs in the market using complex and unethical strategies to suck out as much profit as possible from the market. This leads to a great unavailability of generic drugs in the market and patients are unable to afford medications due to the high prices. Even the policy-makers have trouble tracing these errors and finding schemes of brand-name drug companies. This is leading to an extraordinary problem in the pharma field. Absence of generic drugs, brand-name drug companies holding off the competition is fueling the rise in the price of medications.

Generic drugs create a huge competition in the pharma market. Delaying generic competition for as little as six months can be worth half a billion dollars in sales for a blockbuster drug. One such tactic to keep generics off the market is petitions by brand-name drug companies to the Food and Drug Administration asking the agency not to give green light to generic versions of a drug. Other tactics include stopping generic firms from obtaining brand-name product samples so they can’t convince the FDA that the generic is comparable, or refusing to agree on safety measures with generic companies. Making also slight changes to the dosage or delivery mechanism of a drug just before the patent expires and then shifting the market to the new version, protected by shiny new patents. Although the patents may be poor — and tests by the FDA indicate that when generics challenge patents they succeed much of the time — the appeal process may take years.

In addition to this tension, medical professionals have indicated that they trust drugs made by reputable companies. Various branded pharmaceutical trading agencies and drug makers portray branded drugs via advertising and promotion are superior to generics. You can’t blame brand-name drug companies for behavior that is heavily in their economic self-interest. But you can blame a system that rewards drug companies while consumers and society pay the price: excessively expensive drugs, higher taxes to cover soaring Medicare costs, higher insurance premiums and unnecessary suffering for those who can not afford their medicines.

There is a need for healthcare policy-makers and government initiatives to come together and clear the pathway for generic drug companies. The war between generic drug companies and brand-named drug companies is there and needs to be addressed.