When you are walking done the aisle of your local pharmacy and looking for medication to relieve a headache, do you ever consider where your money is going?
When buying Pharmaceuticals, you have a choice to buy brand names or the equivalent generic brand. Many things may pop into your head or may come up in your subconscious thought such as “this one is cheaper”, “this is what my parents always used”, “I liked the ad for this that I saw recently” however have you ever considered where the extra money is going that you would be paying for the brand name?
Brand Names (the inventors):
They invest millions or billions of dollars and many years in research and development to develop the drugs that help you and relieve your pain.
They work hard to give you the best product and use the finest ingredients to make sure that they surpass any FDA requirements.
Bottom Line: You are spending a little more money but you are helping the company continue to develop new drugs that may help you or your children out in the future.
Generic (the improvers):
They don’t spend any time at all in research and development.
They jump in the second a patent from a brand name drug expires.
They duplicate the brand name drug using the cheapest ingredients that the FDA will approve (they don’t have to go the extra mile for fine ingredients because they don’t have the invested time and money at stake).
They follow the leader by taking a product that works and making it cheaper.
Bottom Line: You save some money but you are not supporting development of new drugs.
It’s unfortunate but Inventors always end up with the short straw. They create something which the world needs but they spend all of their money, time and effort convincing the world that they need it. The improvers jump into a market of people who already know they need the product, they make a little change that improves the product and they reap the benefits. Just think, the person who invented the fax machine didn’t make it big but all the companies that sold fax machines once it became a staple everyone’s office did.
My take as a marketer and businessman is to give props to the generic guys because they are giving me the better deal but as a human being, I’d rather give the business to the Brand guys.I used to be a huge advocate for buying only generic because you get the same product for a lower cost but now I’m not sure. Leave me a comment: what do you buy and what is your thought process ?