Juego de patentes. Sobre medicamentos genéricos y biosimilares
- Elena Villamañán Bueno
- D. González Bermejo
- Eduardo Ramón Armada Romero
- M. Ruano
- Rodolfo Álvarez Sala Walther
- Alicia Herrero Ambrosio
ISSN: 1134-282X
Year of publication: 2016
Volume: 31
Issue: 2
Pages: 99-105
Type: Article
More publications in: Revista de calidad asistencial
Metrics
Cited by
SCImago Journal Rank
- Year 2016
- SJR Journal Impact: 0.167
- Best Quartile: Q3
- Area: Medicine (miscellaneous) Quartile: Q3 Rank in area: 2146/2941
- Area: Health Policy Quartile: Q4 Rank in area: 198/264
Scopus CiteScore
- Year 2016
- CiteScore of the Journal : 0.8
- Area: Health Policy Percentile: 26
Abstract
The protection provided by patents on medicines has a limited duration. The expiry of patents expiration allows copies of the drugs to be released, competing with original. At first, they were identical to the original, known as generic drugs, but in recent years, due to the marketing of biological therapies and the expiry of many of their patents, biosimilar drugs have also emerged. These are not exact copies of the original, but, like generic drugs, biosimilar drugs have to demonstrate equivalence to the reference drugs in quality, safety and efficacy. Nevertheless, despite their importance and contribution to sustainability of health system, doctors are sometimes unaware of differences between them, and their impact in terms of clinical and economic effects. An attempt is made to review and clarify certain aspects often unknown by physicians, despite their involvement in their use.