[india-drug] Re: Drug Prices (2)

["HINDU PHARMACY" <pharmhin@sancharnet.in>]

Drug Prices (2)
******** 

Thanks Dr. Dabade for the article "Essentail Drugs may Become Cheaper". What I say now needs to be discussed further:

I feel that this could be an "illusion", intentional, or unintentional. The past has shown, that the moment a drug is put into price control, the companies try to squirm out of it either by adding one more innocuous & or unnecessary active ingredient (e.g. caffein, lactobacillus); or changing the drug molecule to a similar one (e.g. pseudoephedrine to phenylephrine), or simply removing the marketing focus on the drug, and concentrating on higher priced brands within the company, or simply stopping he manufacture of the drug/brand. The past experience has plenty to say in all of the above. Today, there are numerous drugs from the EDL, which are not regularly available in the market. A survey will show very interesting findings. Many of the drugs in the EDL are not marketed by the top companies, because they 
express that simply cannot afford to market them.

On the other hand, considering we have around 2000 - 5000 (who has the correct figures??) different drugs & combinations marketed in our country, surveys are likely to realize, that the so called non-essential drugs will take up the bulk of the share of the drug market.

Raj Vaidya, M.Pharm,
Community Pharmacist,
Hindu Pharmacy,
Panaji - Goa - India
Tel : 91-832-2223176, 2432903
Email : pharmhin@sancharnet.in