Objective: From the viewpoint of drug cost reduction, many generic drugs have appeared in the eye drops market.  Although the price of eye drops is defined on a per bottle (or per mL) basis, the difference in the total number of drops per bottle between the original drug and its generic drug may alter the drug cost reduction effect greatly.  Moreover, the difference in the total number of drops per bottle may also affect the number of pharmacy visits made by a patient in one year.
Methods: The total number of drops per bottle of an original drug and a generic drug was computed, and the influence of the number of drops on the drug cost reduction effect, including drug cost, was evaluated.
Results: Distinct differences in the volume per drop and the total number of drops per bottle were observed between the original drug and its generic drug, and those differences were found to clearly influence the drug cost reduction effect.  Moreover, in a survey of patients who shifted to generic eye drops, there were some patients who returned to the original eye drops because they could not apply the generic eye drops with ease or their eyes started to smart after using the generic eye drops.
Conclusion: This study revealed the need to take into consideration patient’s ease of use and the drug cost reduction effect, in the selection of eye drops.

Objective: In our country, the measure for the spread of the generic has been introduced over several-time as part of the moderation in health care cost plan.  However, not having related to an enough spread unlike Europe and America yet is a current state.  Then, we investigated from the view point of patients.  A detailed examination was performed for the acknowledgment level and attitude toward the generic drug.
Design and Method: The questionnaire survey was performed for the patient who used the community pharmacy for dispensing prescription.  The investigation was performed for two weeks (June and July, 2008) at the 50 drugstores in Hokkaido.  The patient attribute, source of information, and kind of the taking medicine were examined as a factor to affect decision making for generic drug substitution.
Result: The main results are as follows.  The patients who did not know generic drugs accounted 52% of the total and the patients who did not know the words called generic drugs was 16%.  This result shows that the degree of the recognition about generic drugs at that time was still low.  The information source for the patients who learned generic drugs were articles of the newspaper, a TV program, and advertising with accounted 52% of the total.  Also, the patients who prefer generic drugs in the future were 64%.  In the relationships between presence of wish for generic drugs and the source of information, the case of from the doctor, was significant (p<0.05) and the case from the pharmacist showed the tendencies of statistical significance (p=0.076).
Conclusion: From the viewpoint of medicine costs restraint in our country, it seems that the pharmacist contributes for the patient’s generic drugs selection expected positively.