Article at a glance:

Building Japan’s generic-drug market

• Japan’s government is encouraging the greater use of generic drugs. McKinsey research suggests that most of the country’s patients want to take them to save money on co-payment charges.
• Few patients dare ask their doctors to prescribe generics, however. Doctors are generally skeptical about these drugs and don’t have a financial incentive to prescribe them.
• Creating such incentives and getting Japan’s doctors to trust generics will be the keys to increasing their adoption rate, which if it rose to US levels could cut the country’s total drug bill by one-third.