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Composition, characteristics of generics influence efficacy
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AMSTERDAM — With increasing choice of both branded and generic IOP lowering drugs, the issue becomes whether all patients can be given generics, a glaucoma specialist said in a presentation here.
“Generally speaking, most generic drugs are the same quality and have the same performance as the brand name drug,” Jean-Phillipe Nordmann, MD, PhD, said at Glaucoma Subspecialty Day preceding the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons meeting. They must have the same active ingredients, but the inactive ingredients are not always the same, he said.
For non-ophthalmic drugs, efficacy and equivalency are measurable, but for ophthalmic drugs, measurements are difficult and so they are assumed, he said.
“The composition may be different in generics,” Nordmann said. Even when concentration of the brand drug and generic drug is the same initially, if stabilizers or other ingredients have been added to the generic, the concentration of drug may change over time, he said.
The size of the drop, the size of the bottle tip and the viscosity of the surface tension all may influence efficacy, he said.
“It’s not only the active compound but also the characteristics that may be responsible for differences,” Nordmann said.
Disclosure: Nordmann has financial relationships with Alcon, Allergan and Zeiss.