Established Pharmaceuticals?



I was amused when I read "established pharmaceuticals". The person handed me his business card when I was introduced to him in an Industry function.

I enquired "what is this established pharmaceutical"?

The reply was "it is an off-patented innovator molecule". Hmmm ... very innovative way of saying that "it is a generic product".

He was from a R&D innovator Company and many of the Company's products had lost their patents and thus joined "thousands of other generics" in  the crowded prescription market. In order to differentiate, and for branding purposes and market share, the term "established pharmaceuticals"  was coined.

Marketers create this space to shut out other similar generic molecules in order to create a perception of different quality and of the less "elite" generis. Prescribers were told "established pharmaceuticals" are still the "originals", and thus of choice, but at lower pricings!

The term "branded generic" is still being used. However, the argument is that other generic manufacturers use the term "branded generics" as well, as their generics are also branded because of brand value creation by these manufacturers. Thus there is a need for a new term to differentiate the "original innovator products that had gone generics" according to the innovator Company.

What about "innovator generic or proprietary generics"? Why not continue to use these terms instead of "established pharmaceuticals"?

My conclusion is to "leave this to the marketer" who will confuse the market and the prescribers in order to protect and even to increase their turf size !

/29-01-2015

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