Ingredients

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that all generic drugs be identical to their brand-name equivalents in terms of ingredients and dosages. This means that if you purchase a brand-name drug or its generic equivalent, you are getting the same pill with a different label. There is a common misconception that the FDA allows generic drugs to differ from their brand-name counterparts, but according to the FDA's website, this claim is absolutely false.
  
  

Potency and Effectiveness

• Dosing directions are the same for brand-name and generic drugs. This means you do not have to take more or less of one type of drug than the other; if you are prescribed 20 mg of a brand-name drug, you can take 20 mg of its generic counterpart for the same effect. According to the FDA, "research shows that generics work just as well as brand-name drugs."
  
  

Manufacturing

• Generic drugs are made in the same way as their brand-name counterparts. Their manufacturing and packing facilities are held to the same standards as brand-name producers.
  
  

Cost

• Generic drugs are less expensive for the consumer than their brand-name counterparts. Some people may be concerned that this means the generics come with lower quality, but this simply is not true. In fact, according to Dr. Melissa Stoppler, generic drugs are less expensive because the generic manufacturers do not have to spend extra money on research and marketing. They can simply piggy-back off of the original company's process for creating and manufacturing the drug without having to research a brand new drug. This makes their costs lower, so they can sell their product for less expensive amounts.
  
  Generic companies can begin to manufacture generic drug equivalents when the patent for the brand-name drug is about to expire; for this reason, there may not be a generic equivalent for every brand-name drug if a patent is still in effect for that brand.
  
  

Insurance

• Some insurance companies require patients to use a generic drug whenever one is available. Other insurance companies will charge the patient a larger co-pay for a brand-name drug than they will for a generic. Insurance companies do this in order to keep their costs down, but patients should not be concerned that they are receiving lesser treatment from the generic drugs.