Hi there, hope you are well. I have had a look at the prices of generic Viagra which contains sildenafil citrate and the branded Viagra which also contains sildenafil citrate.
My question is why there is such as large difference in the price of essentially the same medicine? Or is there any difference between the branded and generic versions of Viagra?
Solution: The difference between the branded and the generic versions of Viagra as you said yourself is none.
There is no difference between the branded Viagra and generic Viagra as they both contain the same chemical ingredient.
The price difference between the two is because firstly one is branded and the other is not.
The second difference is the costs of the companies in bringing these medicines to the market. Viagra was brought to the market by Pfizer and they spend billions to bring a new medicines or new drug with therapeutic effects to the market. The same applies to Viagra. They brought sildenafil citrate to the market to treat erectile dysfunction under the brand name of Viagra. They then patented the product where they were allowed to recover the costs by selling the product at a premium as no one else would be allowed to sell this product without a marketing approval from Pfizer.
However, a generic drug is a copycat drug and the prices to bring this drug the market are significantly lower as there is minimal to almost no research and development involved. Thus these can be priced more competitively.
