Sometimes it seems as though generic drugs are one of those things that everybody likes as an idea, but they wouldn’t want to take one themselves. Ireland is at the bottom of the European market by value, and second from bottom by volume. Exports of generics make up a significant proportion of total finished product pharmaceutical exports. So we don’t consume them, but we’re happy to make money from them. By 2012 the patents of another 19 major drugs and combinations will have expired, such as fluticasone + salmeterol, losartan, clopidogrel, olanzapine, montelukast and docetaxel. In the next five years, the range of frequently prescribed drugs available as generics will probably grow faster than the number of major new patented drugs, producing an interesting shift in the balance between the generic companies and the patent-lead companies. Since the HSE is heading towards a deficit, and economic growth has slowed, how best to use generics will become an increasingly important and frequently discussed topic both for practitioners and for policy-makers.