Nguyen Tuan A, Hassali Mohamed A A, McLachlan Andrew
School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, University of South Australia, South Australia, Australia.
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia.
WHO South East Asia J Public Health. 2013 Jan-Mar;2(1):72-74. doi: 10.4103/2224-3151.115849.
Generic medicines are a key strategy used by governments and third-party payers to contain medicines costs and improve the access to essential medicines. This strategy represents an important opportunity provided by the global intellectual property regimes to discover and develop copies of original products marketed by innovator companies once the patent protection term is over. While there is an extensive experience regarding generic medicines policies in developed countries, this evidence may not translate to developing countries. The generic medicines policies workshop at the Asia Pacific Conference on National Medicines Policies 2012 provided an important opportunity to discuss and document country-specific initiatives for improving access to and the rational of use of generic medicines in the Asia Pacific region. Based on the identified barriers and enablers to implementation of generic medicines policies in the region, a set of future action plans and recommendations has been made.
