The losers, then, might be the other side of that see-saw, the companies that have invested most heavily in the generics: Novartis, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, and Ranbaxy Laboratories.

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Large pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in portraying international generics as unsafe.

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Its Sandoz generics subsidiary produces generic drugs as well as active pharmaceutical ingredients.

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In North America, health technology, a sector which includes major pharmaceutical companies and other drug-makers like companies which make generics, eeked out a 0.43% gain over the past two weeks, according to FactSet Research Systems.

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Atul Sobti, boss of Ranbaxy, an Indian generics firm bought last year by Daiichi Sankyo, a Japanese pharmaceutical giant, offers a different reason for scepticism.

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And new competitors are entering, among them big pharmaceutical firms, led by Novartis, that are themselves trying to diversify into generics.

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