Cofepris Reports Use of Generic Medicines Grows Exponentially in Mexico EFF
go to original March 11, 2015

Generic medicines are the same product in a different package and their rate of consumption in Mexico is among the highest in the world, the head of the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks Oversight, known as Cofepris, told Efe.

"We have to look at this in the simplest way - they're the same products and can be sold when their patents expire," Mikel Arriola said in explaining that the work of Cofepris is precisely to make sure that consumers get the same product.

Arriola described as a "black legend" the resistance to these products because they are supposedly less effective. If that were true, consumption would be low, but "in Mexico it is the highest in the world, so there's no more black legend against generics," he said.

Over the past four years, the number of generic products sold in Mexico grew more than 15,000 percent, going from 153 in 2010 to 23,000 in 2014.

...The average expense for Mexicans dropped from 2,100 to 750 pesos (from $140 to $50) over the same period, while state-run health insurer IMSS provided coverage for 1.1 million additional patients, he said.

Read the rest at Fox News Latino

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