In a recent issue of The Annals (2001;35:281-4), Sajbel et al. reported that converting patients from brand-name clozapine to generic clozapine was safe and cost-saving. In their study, the switch appears to be decided by the pharmacy and therapeutics committee, with no possibility of a patient's refusal.In France, patients can refuse to have a brand-name drug converted to a generic one, even if the physician agrees to the switch. We conducted a study 1 addressing the difficulty in obtaining the patient's agreement to the switch. Fourteen outpatients with a prescription for brand-name clozapine were asked by a clinical pharmacist to be converted to generic clozapine. All accepted, nine of them without reserve, five after explanation of the switch (>15 min).Thus, it appears that the patient's preference is not an obstacle for a switch to generic clozapine.
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