OBJECTIVES In early 2010, Greece was placed under International Supervision (EU, ECB and IMF), as a result of a growing public deficit and its non-sustainable state expenditure. At the time, the retail pharmaceutical market had a size of c.a. €6.5 bn in retail prices (public pharmaceutical expenditure €5.2 bn). Within that framework, the reduction of pharmaceutical expenditure was one of the main targets for fiscal adjustment.  The purpose of this study was to assess the usage of generic medicines in Greece, as a key driver for savings from the pharmaceutical market, and compare it with that of other major European countries.  METHODS IMS data from several European countries was collected in terms of the overall retail pharmaceutical market and the consumption of generic medicines in each of them. Focus was placed on the top-10 genericized molecules for Greece including alendronic acid, atorvastatin, carvedilol, clarithromycin, clopidogrel, donepezil, fluconazole, olanzapine, omeprazole and simvastatin. To ensure an “apples-to-apples” comparison across countries, the study focused on the retail market only (excluding hospitals) given that, in Greece, there is no publicly-available data for pharmaceutical consumption within the hospital setting. RESULTS The analysis indicated that, in Greece, the penetration of generic medicines within the top-10 genericized molecules was 65% in terms of volume, with off-patent medicines holding the remaining 35%. According to IMS data, Greece had a lower penetration of 21 percentage points (-24%) versus the weighted European average and -8.2 percentage points (-11%) versus the cluster of Southern European countries plus Ireland for calendar year 2013. CONCLUSIONS Generic penetration within the 10 largest genericized molecules, in Greek retail-pharmacy setting, is significantly lower versus the weighted average of major European countries but also compared to that of countries in similar economic situation with Greece.