Revamped Drug Distribution: About time.

Ok so its been a while since I posted on rxmalice, part of the problem is was that I didnt know how to get folks to read it. Its one thing to write a blog its another to get folks to read it. I got some great advice from a more experienced blogger and based on his rx imma gonna keep this short and sweet.

Retail pharmacies to get distribution prescription

The government is planning to tighten the norms for transporting, storing and selling medicines in the country even as big corporate houses are opening retail pharmacy chains and the existing ones get corporatised........ The proposed good distribution practices would make it mandatory for every retail pharmacy to issue computerised receipts, employ a full-time pharmacist who could guide the consumer to cheaper alternatives in case the prescribed drug is not available and to display the price list properly........ The changes could very well push up the cost of compliance for standalone pharmacies that do not have the economies of scale to lower costs and invest in good practices. In fact, some pharmaceutical companies that opened their own retail pharmacies earlier had to close them down as the corporate tag forced them to adopt high standards that turned out to be too costly.......

Now for those of you who consider CVS/Rite Aid/Eckerd to be the norm this might be quite surprising but least ye forget, not too long ago there were a LOT of community pharmacies all over America and the CVS wallahs just muscled in ably aided by economies of scales provided by managed care and pharmacy benefits management (PBM) and now with CVS taking over CareMark (PBM) they have now achieved whats euphemistically called as Intergrated Pharmaceutical Services. That was bound to happen: the retails were being whipped by PBM's mail order arms (psst the retail chains also have their own mail-order pharmacies but they just couldn't compete) and the PBM's would rather have their own retail ends for their members than pay someone else to fulfill their rx.

I have always felt that India's retail pharmacies (a.k.a Chemist, Druggist and the best one of them all Pharmaceutists (there is one in tony Kemps Corner, Mumbai)) are nothing more than mom and pop shops that have not remotely trained or qualified to dispense rx. Its a well known that you DONT NEED a prescription for ALMOST ANY DRUG (expect the ones that kill quickly or are narcotics). This has lead to MANY folks who are remotely educated to self diagnose and self prescribe and consume rx based on what they feel, read or have seen. This is unthinkable in any mature healthcare system.

But then in ALL mature healthcare systems (developed countries) you CANNOT afford to buy any lifesaving rx with the change thats in your middle class wallet. In India you can and RVPji is trying his best to keep it that way.

One of the biggest criticism leveled against Indian Pharma has been that its not produced any original compounds even though I argue that its a sophisticated industry. This is absolutely true and its totally unnecessary. The reason it was unnecessary is as long as they could legally copy and innovate on any compound that was available in patent filings and literature they would save the $800 odd million that it costs to develop a similar drug. Why spend $800 million when you can produce the same molecule for pennies and make it available for a couple of rupees? They do innovate where it counts, given the hyper-competitive market they are in, they found that where they really need to differentiate their product is in novel drug delivery systems (NDDS) and hence they produced extended release version of most compounds.

While India has a greater proportion of infectious disease most of the compounds available in the world pharma market to fight such diseases are also available in India. So why reinvent the wheel?