Introduction

In an era when increasing demands are being made on the world’s healthcare services, generic and biosimilar medicines provide a major benefit to society by ensuring patient access to quality, safe and effective medicines while reducing the cost of pharmaceutical care.

The International Generic Pharmaceutical Alliance (IGPA) was founded in March 1997 as an international network of generic medicines associations. To reflect the evolving nature of the industry, in September 2015, IGPA incorporated under Swiss Law, and at the same time changed the name of the organization to the International Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association (IGBA).

In 2016, IGBA was admitted as an ICH Assembly Member and in 2018 as an ICH Management Committee Member.

Since September 2019, IGBA has been an Accredited WIPO Observer and in January 2022 IGBA got admitted as non-State actor in official relations with WHO, which underscores the importance of generic and biosimilar medicines in increasing worldwide patient access to safe, effective and high-quality affordable medicines.

In addition, IGBA maintains constant dialogue with other national, regional and international bodies.

IGBA is, so far, only open to national and regional associations. It consists of Full Members, Associate Members and Observers.