asked the Minister for Health if he will make a statement regarding the introduction of generic drugs as replacements for brand name drugs; and the proposals, if any, he has in that respect.
Written Answers. - Generic Drugs.
41.
The policy of my Department for many years past has been to encourage the prescription of drugs using their approved or generic name. This policy arose from the report of the working party on prescribing and dispensing in the GMS, of 1976 and was further endorsed by the report of the working party on the GMS published in August 1984. I might add that this policy has my full support.
Drugs and therapeutics committees were established in the major public hospitals on foot of the 1980 Trident report, in order to draw up prescribing policies to rationalise drug use and to realise fully the scope for economies, including those deriving from preferential purchase of generics.
General practitioners participating in the GMS are regularly circulated by the GMS (Payments) Board with detailed information on the relative cost of a standard course of treatment with various alternative versions of the drugs most commonly in use, including the range of available generics.
I might add that there is also clear statistical evidence of a significant level of generic prescribing in the GMS in regard to those formulations where generics are available. The question of the level of savings which might be achieved on prescribing costs in the GMS will be a central issue in the recently re-opened negotiations with the Irish Medical Organisation on the future of the GMS.