The need to incorporate generic medicines topic in the curriculum of Yemeni pharmacy colleges

Generic medicines are bioequivalent versions of the original brand medicines and produce the same therapeutic effects.[1] In addition, generic medicines can enhance medicine affordability and improve patient adherence. Moreover, wide utilization of generic medicines is effective to curb the fast growth in cost of pharmaceuticals.[2,3] In Yemen, the total pharmaceutical expenditure in 2013 was approximately USD 426 million, which accounts for approximately 40% of the total health expenditure. Furthermore, in 2013, approximately 90.3% of pharmaceuticals in Yemen are imported from abroad.[4] The sale of generic medicines represented by value were only 30% in 2010.[5] In order to enhance the successful utilizations of generic medicines in the Yemeni market, all healthcare stakeholders need to have an excellent understanding of generic medicines issues. Therefore, promotion of generic medicines is important. However, there are negative perception and misunderstanding regarding the safety, efficacy and quality of generic medicines among healthcare professionals in Yemen.[6] In fact, most of the studies in the literature have focused on healthcare professionals and medicine consumers to assess their knowledge and perceptions towards generic medicines. Accordingly, educational efforts and programmes have also focused on improving and correcting the knowledge of the healthcare professionals.[7–10] Hence, given the lack of knowledge and negative perceptions among many healthcare professionals in several countries, Alrasheedy et al. indicated that there is a need to include more topics on generic medicines and bioequivalence in the Pharmacy curriculum.[11] This is because introducing these topics earlier can save the time and efforts needed to fill in the gap after graduation that could be difficult. In fact, the current literature suggests that pharmacy students have inadequate knowledge of generic medicines in several countries including Malaysia, Australia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.[12–16] Therefore, the colleges of pharmacy in Yemen need to ensure that generic medicines are adequately covered in the pharmacy curriculum to prepare the future pharmacy practitioners with appropriate knowledge pertaining generic medicines, generic substitution, bioequivalence, bioavailability and related topics. We believe it is necessary to cover several important topics related to generic medicines in the Yemeni pharmacy curriculum as follows: Concept of generic medicines. Safety, efficacy and quality of generic medicines. Generic substitution practice. Issues related to bioequivalence and bioavailability. General requirement of generic medicine registration in Yemen. Medicines regulation by the Yemeni Supreme Board for Drug and Medical Appliances (drug regulatory authority). Quality control and quality assurance requirements. In conclusion, pharmacy students are the future pharmacy practitioner, and they are the medicines experts in the healthcare system. Therefore, it is necessary to provide them with advanced knowledge about the appropriate use of generic medicines at their undergraduate study. This could save efforts in introducing these topics to them after graduation. The Author(s) declare (s) that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose.