Each month WaveData collect the prices of brands and generics from pharmacies and dispensing doctors. These come from the price lists and invoices sent to these accounts by their suppliers. This means that what we’re looking at here is the ‘share of voice’ rather than market share, which specifically means the amount of effort put into advertising these products to accounts.
Ignoring the first couple of years while WaveData was setting up its operation, you should be able to see that the amount of supply chain activity for generics has grown from roughly 60,000 entries a month between 2003 and 2013 to about 70,000 a month today. At the same time, the number of prices for branded products has declined from about 30,000 a month between 2003 and 2008 to about 18,000 a month.
This suggests that the genericisation of the UK pharmaceutical supply chain has continued as GPs have increased the generic prescribing rates. However, there is some fuzziness to this picture in that the supply chain will use generic names well before patents expire and the brand loses its exclusivity. This means that wholesalers tend to think genetically if they can.
This dichotomy between brands and generics may become even more noticeable in the future as VPAG (the voluntary scheme for pricing, access and growth) increases the rebate that manufacturers have to pay when they sell branded generics. This may discourage the manufacturing and sale of these marginally profitable products and result in more generic products being available in the market.