Generic Drug Substitution Revisited

IN the past few decades, concern about reducing health care costs has led to attempts to increase the dispensing of generic drug products. First, physicians were encouraged to write prescriptions specifying a generic product.^1,2 Second, state antisubstitution laws were modified to permit or even mandate generic substitution, even if the prescription did not include the generic name of the drug.³ Third, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a list of drug products thought to be interchangeable.⁴ Finally, and perhaps most important, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act was enacted in 1984.⁵ One of its chief goals.