05 Oct,2015

IDPD Comments on Public notice by MHFW Govt. of India on use of Generics Drugs

Indian Doctors for Peace and Development endorse the initiative of the Government of India to prescribe drugs in legible and capital letters in the generic names only. I shall suggest that a mechanism should be developed by the government that ensures that retail medicine shops don't flee the patients by selling the costliest brands of medicines while honouring prescriptions with generic names. As you are aware that same medicines are sold by different companies with different price tags; in some cases difference between two brands of the same medicine is two to four times higher. Another issue that has to be addressed is that many generic medicines at the wholesale prices are far less than the embossed MRP on the strip/vial/phial of the medicines leading to upto 1000 times profit to retail chemist shops. The government should ensure that generic medicines that are sold in the market should have a margin of profit not exceeding 20% for the retail chemist shops, hence the print price on medicine should be according to the proposed formula. With kind regards.

Dr Shakeel ur Rahman Secretary IDPD