Pharmaceutical companies are not only advertising drugs on television, but they’re also marketing heavily online with offers of free samples and one-time discounts. However, the initial free samples or discounts that may lure you into trying a drug aren’t worth it if you consider the long-term costs of brand-name drugs. Of course, if you really need a drug which has no generic, that’s another story.

A recent study of direct-to-consumer offers on the Internet found that the value of introductory drug offers is low when you compare it with the retail cost to continue buying the brand-name medicine. Plus, in many …read more

Brand-name drugs do not offer any advantages, over generic counterparts states the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Aaron Keeselheim of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston found that contrary to the belief, of some doctors and patients that the costly brand-name drugs are no more effective than the generic drugs.
There have been 30 studies since 1984 comparing the two types of cardiovascular drugs. The findings of the studies were that there weren’t any advantages to the brand-name drugs.
In a interview Dr. Kesselheim said, "if a patient is prescribed a generic drug they should be …read more