Hi Fifi

This is an excellent question!  I have wondered this myself especially since I am giving my son the generic form of Prozac which is way cheaper than the brand name.

In order to answer this question I took a quick scan of the literature out there and found this excellent article which may shed some light onto this topic.  It seems the FDA is supposed to ensure that the generic brands are equivalent to the brand names in quality, dosage, safety, strength, and purity.  In many cases the generic version is manufactured by the same company which makes the brand name.

In the above cited article, entitled, "Is Generic Good Enough?" the author states that:

"The FDA tests the bio-equivalence of each generic in small groups of people to make sure that blood levels of the active ingredient are within 20% of the brand-name drug. FDA reviews of generic drugs have found they differed by only about 3 or 4%, on average, from the brand names-about the same difference seen among batches of brand-name drugs."

So to answer your question... generic is not exactly the same as a brand name drug but darn close to it.  It would be interesting to see any comments from folks who have tried brand name antidepressants and their generic counterpart to see if they felt there was a difference.

Thank you for your excellent question.  Hope this helps some.