A generic drug is identical, or bioequivalent to a brand name drug in dosage form, safety, strength, route of administration, quality, performance characteristics and intended use.  Although generic drugs are chemically identical to their branded counterparts, they are typically sold at substantial discounts from the branded price.
 

The naming process

When a pharmaceutical company discovers a new generic drug to treat or prevent a condition, they put it through a series of clinical trials in order to gain approval for marketing from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA is a government body responsible for ensuring that all medicines that reach the UK market meet appropriate standards of safety, quality and efficacy. If the clinical trial results show the new drug to be safe and effective for the condition in question, the MHRA approves the drug and gives it a licence.

Once the licence has been granted by the MHRA, the pharmaceutical company can then market the generic medicine under a brand name. The company then has exclusive rights to market the medicine for the licensed uses for a certain period of time, usually about 10 to 12 years. This is known as a patent, and allows the drug company to recoup the costs of research and development of the new medicine, before other drug companies are allowed to produce it. Other drug companies are likely to be able to produce and sell the medicine at a cheaper rate, because the research and development has already been done.

Once a patent expires, other drug companies then have the right to manufacture and market the generic drug, however, they must market it under a different brand name, or under its generic name.

For example, sildenafil (Viagra) is still under patent and so can currently only be marketed by Pfizer to treat impotence. Once the patent expires, we can expect to see other other pharmaceutical companies marketing potentially cheaper versions of the generic medicine sildenafil, either under different brand names, or simply as the generic sildenafil.

Ibuprofen on the other hand is a much older medicine and can already be bought under various different brand names, eg Nurofen (made by Reckitt Benckiser), Brufen (made by Abbott) and Anadin ultra (made by Wyeth Consumer Healthcare), to name but a few. All of these contain ibuprofen as the generic medicine. Ibuprofen can also be bought simply as ibuprofen tablets, made by various different manufacturers who market it without a brand name.