OBJECTIVES: Anti-dementia medication is relatively expensive. The aim was to determine what the impact of the introduction of new branded generic equivalents is on the prescribing patterns of anti-dementia medication. METHODS: A retrospective pharmacoepidemiological study was conducted on pharmacy dispensing data in South Africa for 2015 (and compared to 2013). All products in ATC subgroup N06D were extracted and analysed. RESULTS: A total of 15 888 anti-dementia products were dispensed to 2 793 patients in 2015. The average age of patients was 72.73 (SD=12.79) years. Slightly more male patients (53.42%) were prescribed anti-dementia products, and male patients (74.20 years) were slightly older than female patients (71.04 years). Four different active ingredients were prescribed, namely donepezil (68.64% of volume; 56.99% of cost), memantine (25.62% of volume; 31.96% of cost), galantamine (5.60% of volume; 10.63% of cost) and rivastigmine (0.14% of volume; 0.43% of cost). Both donepezil and memantine had branded generic equivalents in 2015, compared to only donezepil in 2013. Three new branded generics were introduced (two for donepezil and one for memantine). The two active ingredients without generic equivalents (galantamine and rivastigmine) remained on average the most expensive per prescription (R522.93 and R1 287.58, respectively). If the 2015 results are compared to a similar study that was conducted in 2013, the average cost per prescription decreased by 1.85% for memantine, and increased by 5.39% for donepezil. The two active ingredients without generic equivalents, showed higher average cost increases (50.30% for rivastigmine and 11.67% for galantamine). CONCLUSIONS: Many variables impact on the cost of medicine. Without taking clinical information into account, it is not possible to make definite conclusions. However, from this study it seems as if the introduction of new branded generics did impact on the cost of prescriptions and that it even resulted in a cost decrease for memantinetwo years later despite inflationary price increases.