Medicine - same ingredients but different pricing.

SideWinder · 2 Jul 2012 at 20:49

I think i am getting a cold. I have a sore throat and i thought i would be the responsible adult i am and buy some medicine. :cool:

Upon comparing the £2 whatever Superdrug own brand versus Lemsip/Beechams...i could see no difference whatsoever. Both had the same ingredients but one was twice the price.

Why is this? I went for the cheaper one of course as there was no difference and they both contained the exact ingredient and exact .mg.

Ahleckz · 2 Jul 2012 at 20:49

Marketing.

Glaucus · 2 Jul 2012 at 20:50

Branding, licensing and reserch costs.
But mainly branding.

It's always worth going with generic if it's available.

PhillyDee · 2 Jul 2012 at 20:50

Branding. People will buy the marketed brand because they see them as better.

Spleenus · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:23

I see this all the time, people seem willing to pay £3.29 for the Nurofen equivalent of our own brand which costs 39p. Madness I tell you. That or some people clearly have more money than sense - and that speaks volumes about them with the amount of money they appear to have!

Disco Boy · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:32

The big companies actually do research into new compounds/ mixtures. Whereas own brands simply manufacture whatever isn't patented/ patent expired.

So the big companies have higher costs, and occasionally better products.

People pay the higher rate because of marketing.

shadow_boxer · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:33

Glaucus said:
...licensing and reserch costs...

This. The average drug costs in the region of £500M to develop so they need to recoup the cost somehow.

Glaucus · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:34

shadow_boxer said:
This. The average drug costs in the region of £500M to develop so they need to recoup the cost somehow.

It doesn't apply to most of these situations though, as they will have a patent for x-years so no generic company can produce it.
For things like cold medicine, it has no such things and is just branding and people not actually taking an interest in the active ingriedents.

Spleenus · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:36

shadow_boxer said:
This. The average drug costs in the region of £500M to develop so they need to recoup the cost somehow.

I'm quite sure they've all recouped their costs from Paracetamol/Aspirin and Ibuprofen since these are the main active ingredients of your off the shelf painkillers.

Posty · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:38

most homecare branded stuff is also a rip off. i use the generic stuff for dishwasher/clothes washing/washing up liquid/bleech etc..

Crowort · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:39

The branding can make them work better via the placebo effect. I've seen some tests that show people being given the same drug twice and pain tested but one of the times the drug is in a branded box and the other time it is just in a plain white box. They can 'take' more pain (they held their hands in icy water) for longer when they think they have a brand make.

It is funny how much difference in price there is for things like paracetamol, it is pence own brand and pounds branded.

godinman · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:40

edit - Damn you! ^^^^^^

The placebo effect is a strong one too, some people think Panadol is better, and that's quite possibly because it actually works better for them due to the placebo effect.

[FnG]magnolia · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:45

Pharmacist friends of ours get very sniffy if they see someone using branded products. It's quite amusing.

uchuff · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:50

Aspro Clear branded soluble aspirin fizz and dissolve way better than any other version we've tried. Nothing worse than a bit of leftover powder at the end. Other than that, yeah, just the generics for us.

Neurofen seem to have done a good job rebranding ibuprofen, a lot of people swear by it.

Bear · 2 Jul 2012 at 21:53

Probably a stupid question but are all paracetamol or ibuprofen equal in terms of quality?

Xordium · 2 Jul 2012 at 22:31

Bear said:
Probably a stupid question but are all paracetamol or ibuprofen equal in terms of quality?

Yes, all active ingredients are the same and have to be. However, the means of delivery and other non-active things can vary. Generally this is unimportant or at least you think so until you try giving cheap paracetamol syrup to a kid rather than Calpol ... sometimes it's worth paying that little extra.

Crowort · 2 Jul 2012 at 22:34

Bear said:
Probably a stupid question but are all paracetamol or ibuprofen equal in terms of quality?

Yes. All that matters is the dose and the drug. 1 gram (2 tablets normally) of paracetamol is always the same. Medication isn't like a sausage were you can take the meat (drug) out and replace it with rusk (some kind of filler) If it says it has 500mg then it will have.

Xordium is right about Calpol, no other brand or non-brand tastes like something a kid would like. I ain't sure how they do it because paracetamol tastes rank.

int · 2 Jul 2012 at 22:37

In some cases, the ingredients are the same, but packaged in a different form or slightly modified to aid delivery:

Packaging - liquid capsules are broken down and the contents absorbed quicker than tablets.

Chemical alteration - ibuprofen lysinate (or lysine depending on the branding) is absorbed faster than standard acid ibuprofen.

The Chemist · 2 Jul 2012 at 23:23

As said in this thread, it mostly depends on the drug tariff, the wholesale price at which the pharmacy obtains the medicine, mark ups etc. Generics tend to be cheaper to purchase wholesale, and thus most of the time cheaper than branded products.

The Halk · 2 Jul 2012 at 23:25

I always go generic, but I've always wondered if there's anything in the heavily marketed stuff. I can't remember any specific claims off the top of my head, but they seem to claim they work faster?

I know it's the same active ingredients, and in the same quantity, I've assumed the fast acting etc claims are marketing spin, is there anything in them at all?