Greater generic drug penetration could reduce private health care cost in South Africa

Recently, two of the larger hospital groups in South Africa, Netcare and Mediclinic, called for the Competition Commission to include the pharmaceutical sector in its investigation into the costs of private health care. The National Association of Generic Manufacturers (NAPM) maintains that its members could play a bigger role in reducing the costs of medicines in hospitals.

Data released by IMS for January 2013, shows that of the prescribed medicines in the 20 billion rand ($2 billion) per year private health care market, branded drugs make up 63.1%, whereas generics only account for 34%. There is clearly a significant imbalance, which is directly attributable to the skewed usage of medicines. The NAPM believes that if the balance was reversed, costs would be dramatically reduced with significant savings on healthcare.

The NAPM believes that the high cost of branded medicines does impact health care costs and this is compounded by the apparent reluctance of some doctors and specialists in certain therapeutic areas to make use of cheaper alternative generic medicines in hospitals.