The Truth about INDIAN MEDICINES!

INDIA: The World’s Pharmacy

India is known as the “Pharmacy of the world", but why? To understand it, we need to understand Indian medicines first. To understand the Indian market of medicines let's take a look at its 3 important aspects.

Accessibility: Medicines are part of every person’s human right to the best health possible. Having excess medicines for everyone is as important as having an excess of food. Let us understand it with an example, imagine if your location is in a village or far from any city where medicines are not accessible then it can cause you huge losses or sometimes even death. & the harsh reality is it has happened many times in rural areas of India. So we need to cover it to provide medicines in each part of India.

India’s work on providing accessibility: 

1. PM JAN AUSHADHI KENDRA:

• JAN AUSHADHI KENDRA are pharmacy centres that provide people with generic

medicines at affordable prices.

• Presenting the Union budget for the financial year 2020-2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Seetharaman announced a proposal to expand the government-run JAN AUSHADHI KENDRA in all districts of India. Currently, more than 700 JAN AUSHADHI KENDRA is operational in districts of India.

• Our JAN AUSHADHI KENDRA revenue recently crossed 100 crores for the first time. The government wants to increase the number of shops by 10,000 by March 2024. There are currently 8735 shops in 739 districts.

2. E-PHARMACY:

• In the past few years, online sales and services have increased. Nationwide lockdowns have been one of the catalysts in this process. E-Pharmacy also came in the highlight at this time but Retail pharmacists and clinicians have been opposed to E-pharmacy as Indian regulations prohibit the sale of medicines or drugs online because it can lead to wrong prescriptions and the exploitation of medicines.

• Towards the end of August 2021, The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has formed a committee to draft the new Drugs and Medical Devices Act.

• Imports manufacture, distribution, and sales of drugs and cosmetics are regulated under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of 1940. The proposed new law will replace the existing Drug and Cosmetic Act and cover medical devices, e-pharmacies, and hospital equipment.

• The market share of e-pharmacies is not fully developed but is working by giving price discounts to the customers with free delivery which is making medicines accessible.

Affordability:

Access to essential medicines and other medical technologies depends on affordable pricing and effective financing. Drug costs pose a significant financial burden to families in India. Let us understand it with an example if you are located in a city with access to all the medicines but you are not able to purchase medicines then this can be a bigger issue. we need to make medicines affordable.

India’s work on providing affordability:

1. MANUFACTURING POWER:

• The power of production in India is unmatchable. You all know during the time of Covid-19, India has received specific requests for the vaccine from nearly 60 countries. The vaccine which was developed by Astra Zeneca and Oxford University is mass-produced by the serum Institute of India and it dispatched 14.5 million doses to 11 countries.

• There is a simple rule in business, if the production of anything is high, the cost of each product will decrease. India can mass produce the drugs which complete all needs of India & more than 20% of the world. India supplies over 50% of Africa’srequirement for generics, around 40% of generic demand in the US and 25% of all meds in the UK. We need to implement rules on quality to make our medicines top- class.

• With numerous generic drug producers in India, there has been a price reduction of over 99 per cent for drugs across various therapeutic areas such as Tuberculosis, Malaria, HIV/AIDS, and Hepatitis C and drugs for non-communicable diseases are critical aspects of public health programs.

2. GENERIC MEDICINES:

• The cost of developing a new drug is very expensive however the cost of manufacturing a drug that has already been invented is relatively cheap. The existence of high R&D costs and low manufacturing costs creates a huge problem for the overall drug development process. Due to low manufacturing costs, a pharmaceutical company that invests billions to develop a new drug faces immediate competition.

• To incentivize drug invention pharmaceutical companies that innovate new drugs are provided patents i.e. market exclusivity. Market exclusivity provides an opportunity for the company to recover its R&D costs and make profits thus incentivizing innovation. The company however is given exclusivity only for a limited time (usually 10-12 years) after which the patents expire and generic companies can copy the medicine and enter the market.

• To keep the costs of medications cheap, India has made a series of policy decisions. For example, until 2005, India offered no patent protection for pharmaceutical products, which made the generic pharmaceutical industry thrive & make medicines affordable as there is no R&D cost included.

Quality:

Quality is the most important factor here. Standard quality medicine is something which shows approximately 90% efficacy and therapeutic effect on the body. If the efficacy is less than 90%, it will be called the substandard quality of medicine. If the medicine is accessible & affordable but is of substandard quality will you purchase it? India’s work on providing quality: 1. NATIONAL LIST OF ESSENTIAL MEDICINES 2022:

• Essential medicines are medicines that are intended to be available in functioning health systems at all times, in appropriate dosage forms, of assured quality and at prices individuals and health systems can afford. The WHO said that the essential medicines list can lead to improved access through streamlined procurement of quality-assured medicines.

• On 13th September 2022, India released the National List of Essential Medicines 2022. The government has included 34 drugs and dropped 26 from the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM). The updated list was released by Union ministers Dr Bharti Panwar and Mansukh Mandaviya.

• The list now contains 384 medicines approved by the central authorities. Several antibiotics, vaccines and anti-cancer drugs will become more affordable by their addition to the list. However, 26 drugs such as Ranitidine, Sucralfate, white petrolatum, Atenolol and Methyldopa have been deleted from the revised list.

In summary, I would like to say, our collective goal must be to make India's medicines accessible, affordable, and high-quality for all.

“Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity. ” ― Hippocrates