Because there’s a political interest in keeping health costs down for humans. For animals the market his more “free”. With doctors in the family we just had the vet recommend the drug and then bought the human version for our dogs.
How come they don't make generic drugs for cats and dogs. I love my sisters buddy to death. Its just weird that all my meds are generic but animals are name brand. I just hate spend 250 every 3 mon.
Submitted 2 hours ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
glasratz@feddit.org 39 minutes ago
N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Guitar@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
It depends on the medication. There are certainly plenty of generic medications that were originally designed for people that will work just fine for cats and dogs. But for animal specific meds, the short answer is that there just isn’t enough money in veterinary medical research. The demand just isn’t there to create a cheap generic alternative. Drug companies will create a formula that can help animals with specific problems, and then they patent the hell out of it and charge whatever they want. This happens with uncommon meds for people too. But you usually don’t hear about it because there aren’t that many people that need it. There are so many more generics for people because there is so much more money put into medical research for humans. Animal medicine is mostly built off of the research done for human medicine. So since it has less research and funding, you end up with a lot of expensive name brand meds for animal specific issues.
Solumbran@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Because no one gives a shit about animals. I mean, gives even less of a shit than they do with humans.
HubertManne@piefed.social 56 minutes ago
I swear we have gotten generics for our dogs for some things but can’t recall what.
schwim@piefed.zip 2 hours ago
We can barely get our government to protect us from medical price gouging and unfair practices. They care even less about a dog or cat than they do about a human being.
Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 hour ago
Are pet medications still just expired human meds? Or is that an old wives tail?
snooggums@piefed.world 1 hour ago
Old wives tale.
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 15 minutes ago
There are generic drugs made or prescribed for cats and dogs in my part of the world (USA).
In fact, out of all the meds my pets have been prescribed over the years, most of them have been generic. The majority of the time, it’s actually the same medications given to humans (ex: insulin, antibiotics, heart meds, anxiety meds) and some of them I even purchased through a standard pharmacy like Walgreens.
From my experience, the main medications that don’t tend to have generics are drugs that are meant for veterinary purpose only. Flea and tick meds are an example. For those, the situation isn’t all that much different from human medications. They usually start off getting patented, which gives them the exclusive right to make and sell the active ingredient for some period of time. Eventually, though, that protection expires, and then if it’s profitable enough, other manufacturers can make a generic version.
With flea and tick meds specifically, there’s been a steady slate of newer / improved products over the years. I remember a time when a product called Frontline was introduced. It was almost revolutionary, just a small bit of product between the shoulder blades kept the fleas away for a month. Then there was a pill that kills fleas in less than 24 hours. Then they made pill/treats with longer lasting products. Then they combined flea and tick with heartworm meds. Now there’s an injection that lasts months (or maybe it’s a whole year, I can’t recall). Each of these is a new product, so it gets patented and then there’s only a name brand version for whatever the exclusivity period is.
Maybe it’s similar in your country?