Generic medicines India

Of late we are reading in news papers about establishment of generic stores all over the country. In this respect I had written letters to the editor of Deccan Chronicle a couple of times. As there was not any reaction from the paper I had written to the Health Minister of country and Health Minister of AP. Even after that I had read that efforts are on to establish generic medicine stores all over. Since there appears to be no use in sending this to the papers or authorities I am sending it as blog. At least some people who read such blogs can take up the case with the concerned people and see that govt money is not wasted. Following is my letter to the editor of DC and similar letters were sent to union health minister and state health minister.

Dear editor, This is regarding the news item published in today’s newspaper on the topic ‘AP to establish 1000 generic medical stores’ . This may not fit your letters column. If possible I request you to publish it as a separate article.  

I am regular user of generic medicines since a generic medicine shop was opened in Nellore city of A.P. some three or four years back. I want to express my views on the above subject as follows:

 

Some time back Health Minister Kamineni Srinivas said that efforts were on to make generic medicines available even at the remotest villages across the State”. This was reported in Hindu, Andhra Pradesh on 13 sept. The problem with generic medicines is not with their availability. Only problem with generic medicines is lack of cooperation from doctors as Uday Bhaskar explained.  Many doctors have their own medical stores in their compounds and they never write any generic medicines. When I told a doctor that I am using a particular generic medicine in liu of the medicine prescribed by him, he heckled me and told me that I use that medicine at my own risk.  The doctors get lots of expensive gifts from the medical representatives of big companies and they write only those medicines whether they benefit a patient or not. Even if you go to a doctor for a small ailment he writes a list of costly medicines which are available only in his medical store. These medicines will not be available in any other shop where equivalent medicines are available at much lower rates as prescribed by the doctor. The sale of generic medicines had become a big racket in the hands of big pharmaceutical companies as well as some corporate hospitals as explained below.  

Another reason is that there is no where any label on the cartons or strips of medicine that a particular brand of medicine is GENERIC. Many shops and even some pharmacies attached to big corporate hospitals sell these medicines at exorbitant rates. There are many examples where the generic medicine MRPs are printed at three times their cost by the marketing agencies. These marketing agencies are big names like cadila, Ranbaxy, Cipla , Leeford etc. they are manufactured by unknown companies but marketed by famous companies. They mark the rates as high as three to four times their actual value. Therefore it is not required that generic medical shops need to be established everywhere but only the concerned companies should be made to mark correct MRPs on the medicines. I don’t understand how the drug control organization has over looked this aspect for so many years. Probably they were influenced by the big  drug marketing companies. To Illustrate my point I will give just two examples. One is I purchase a drug called Pregebalin marketed by leeford, from a generic medical shop  at Rs. 40/- per a strip of 10 caps. The MRP marked is Rs 130/- another ex. is  OMEE, the price marked on the strip is more than three times the actual price.  Thus I can give examples of a number of medicines whose MRPs are three to four times of their actual price. Therefore my point is that there is no need for establishing generic medicine shops across the state or country but only print the actual consumer price on the medicines concerned.  I hope you will publish this somewhere in your esteemed paper to bring it to the notice of general public as well as the concerned authorizes as an individual cannot do anything about the injustice being done to the general public by big marketing companies with the connivance of the doctors and concerned authorities. I can write more on this but my age does not permit me to type more than this at one time . My only request is that govt. money is not wasted on establishing new shops for generic medicines but to educate people on the unethical practices followed by doctors and big Pharmacutical companies.

General public believe that if the medicine by a doctor is not used his illness will not be cured and hence are prepared to spend lot of money on medicines. The general saying  from the patient’s near and dear is ‘is money more important than the health and life of the patient?’