How do you make pharmaceutical drugs? How are generics made?

ntallyfl: How do you make pharmaceutical drugs? How are generics made?
A drug company comes out with a drug and markets it, but I don’t understand how other companies are able to make generics. Do the pharmaceutical companies have to tell the “recipe” for their drug? Is there a “cook book” for making pharmaceutical drugs? Why am I asking? Well, I was wondering if somebody would be able to buy the ingredients to make pharmaceutical drugs, and have the capability to make them perhaps as a way to “afford” drugs that are unaffordable otherwise. Is the average citizen able to buy the chemicals, and if they are where would they find the formula/recipe to make them?

Answers and Views:

Answer by spartanerik
generics are basically the same thing except not name branded

Answer by twiggles_who_giggles
The generic brand is pretty much the same thing, but it’s not a name brand. You know the ingredients list? That might be a way they now. Or else studies. I’m not really sure. But some things, common people know. Like, in Tylenol I think, (something like that) it has willow in it.

Answer by caryh30
pharmaceutical drugs are drugs that the pharmaceutical company holds a patent over and has sole rights to its production and sale, generics come out after the copyright has expired. essentially they are the same drugs, price is the biggest difference and sometimes the grade is materials are slightly different.

Answer by xaviar_onasis
The original drug is well described in a patent. The patent rights eventually expire. So, the structure is available to anyone who wants to look it up, but the actual manufacturing process is secret (unless, in the unusual case, that too is patented). So, you hire good chemists and get them to tell you how to make it once the patent expires. Sometimes, you hire a chemist who actually worked on that drug.

Since brand name manufacturers know how this works, they often just knuckle under and sell the drug to generic pill manufactures who then put it in a tablet or capsule. Chances are that any asprin you buy in the US was made by Bayer, even if it has another brand on it. Since they are making it anyhow, they have all the equipment in place to sell the drug on the cheap to generic suppliers.

All this relates to the active ingredients in drugs. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the tablet or capsule is exactly the same. Although, it must demonstrate the same bioavailability in testing to get on the market in the US.