ABREVIATURAS

The evolution of the health sector in recent decades has guaranteed to the population increasingly innovative and more complex technologies. This led to the achievement of considerable health gains, increasing the life span of the population, as well as the years lived with quality. However, these developments have led to an increase in health spending in different countries, raising the need to look for strategies that ensure the population's access to the best available therapy, at the best cost. Based on the premise of bioequivalence, generic medicines are a vital tool to achieve this goal, because they allow the reduction of charges with therapies that have already lost exclusivity, releasing funds for therapeutic innovation. Using Rogers' theory of diffusion of innovation, this work tries to evaluate, for the Portuguese market, the differences between molecules with high and low consumption of generic drugs, what influence the diffusion determinants exert on the adoption of these drugs in 2016 and how access to them is conditioned by the time of entry. Using as a sample the molecules with the highest and lowest consumption of generic drugs, in 2016, in Portugal, the study intends to answer the previous questions using the statistical analysis of the determinants of the diffusion theory and the estimation of a linear regression model. The results demonstrate that the molecules with the highest consumption of generics have been in the market for the longest time, have a higher level of intramolecular competition and have a lower relative price of these drugs. In addition, the potential differentiation of the original drug and intramolecular competition appear to have statistically significant effects ( p <0.05) on the consumption of generic drugs in 2016. Moreover, in Portugal these drugs still take a long time to enter the market, conditioning its potential in reducing health expenditure.