Content
- CONVERGENCE OF NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAMMES
- More Global Fund Sites
- Pradhan Mantari Jan Aushadi Kendra â Demonetarization of Medicine Prices in India
- Tools & Resources for Caregivers
- “Say What?!” How to Nip Unwanted Cancer Advice in the Bud
- Notable 2024 FDA decisions
- A SURVEY BASED STUDY IN CURRENT SCENARIO OF GENERIC AND BRANDED MEDICINES
- Pharma’s new age of longevity
- Teva Announces New Patient Access Program with Direct Relief to Provide Access to Inhalers for Unins…
- Costs and affordability
- Machine Learning Approach to Study Social Determinants of Chronic Illness in…
India’s share of the US generic market is growing rapidly, and the number of companies and manufacturing facilities supplying to the U.S. market is growing fast. The focus on growing regulatory requirements, improved healthcare infrastructure, and surge in research and development spend bodes well for the pharma industry. The Indian government believes that the prices of lifesaving drugs shouldn’t be set by market forces. In a country where very few people have health insurance, 70% of Indians pay for healthcare expenses out of their own pockets. There is no way that people in India can pay even a fraction of the cost for drugs that can be priced at $50,000/year in the West. The process of securing reimbursement for a pharmaceutical product varies and depends entirely on the specific processes provided under the respective policy.
CONVERGENCE OF NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAMMES
- The Common Review Missions serve as a platform to not only highlight various state level experiences but also signal the way forward to overcome systemic challenges in access to essential medicines.
- Availability of generics or branded-generics in the market with lower price tag and assured quality is essential to make the medicines affordable.
- While it is essential to prioritize streamlining procurement mechanisms, it is equally important that such provisions effectively translate to better access and availability of medicines across all levels of care.
- Indian industry and government have also suggested manufacturers are being unfairly attacked and subjected to overly stringent oversight by the Americans.
- Retailer is earning INR 22.76 for 10 tablets of branded-generic cetirizine versus Rs 8.16 for the branded version from the same company.
- While the procurement mechanisms are usually centralized, logistics and distribution are widely channelized through regional and/ or district- level distribution centers like warehouses, central medical store depots or district medicine stores.
- Counterfeit medications not only pose a significant threat to public health but also erode consumer trust in the pharmaceutical industry.
Indian industry and government have also suggested manufacturers are being unfairly attacked and subjected to overly stringent oversight by the Americans. Neither IPCA nor Dr. Reddy’s responded to requests for comment, but Amir Attaran, a health-policy expert at the University of Ottawa who tracks the industry, said the findings are troubling. Dhiraj Singh/BloombergAbout one in 20 of Canada’s finished drugs are now made in India – roughly 20 million prescriptions a year. When Health Canada launched a new “Inspection Tracker” website this month listing concerns about standards at pharmaceutical factories, 11 of the 15 plants on the list were in India, seven of them now subject to import restrictions. As a sign of the shift, Canadian generic giant Apotex Inc. locates about 10% of its production at two Indian factories.
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However, as shown in Table 2, PMBJP medicine list has as many as 130 FDCs in different therapeutic categories. The maximum number of fixed dose formulations listed in PMBJP is for vitamins and micronutrient abiraterone cost uk deficiency followed by gastrointestinal complaints and cardiovascular disorders. As a protectionist tide sweeps across the globe, the Indian pharmaceutical industry needs to continue evolving.
Pradhan Mantari Jan Aushadi Kendra â Demonetarization of Medicine Prices in India
Drugs registered under DPCO must be sold within the price range, which is mandatory for the company and therefore, the break-even point is sometimes barely reached (Paul, 2018). Indian companies will continue to expand globally, enriching their manufacturing capabilities to meet the growing demand in the world. The future will see a major role in global healthcare by Indian pharma, not only in making medicines affordable, but also in strengthening India’s position as a global hub for making innovative and high-quality medicines. These policy issues, along with market forces, drive the response of the public and private sectors to reimbursement policies, as well as determine the extent of price control on pharmaceutical products.
Tools & Resources for Caregivers
Doctors regularly write angry letters to newspapers complaining that they cannot find the drugs their patients need. The heart of the problem is that we have driven prices too low, moved supply of generic medicines to a small number of the cheapest-of-the-cheap offshore suppliers, and sacrificed resiliency, manufacturing quality, and backup supply to chase the false god of low prices. Often hailed as the ‘pharmacy of the world,’ the Indian pharmaceutical industry is booming. It jumped from $40 billion in 2021 to an expected $130 billion in 2030, with projections hitting $450 billion by 2047. Beyond just keeping up with the demand at home, the Indian pharma industry commands over 20% of the global pharma supply chain and addresses approximately 60% of the worldwide demand for vaccines.
“Say What?!” How to Nip Unwanted Cancer Advice in the Bud
To exploit that “patent cliff,” governments and insurers in Canada have pushed for lower and lower prices on the copies, and often mandate that patients’ prescriptions be filled with generics. India’s pharmaceutical industry is renowned for selling medicines to the world at reasonable prices, especially developing countries. To find out if there’s a generic drug that will work just as well for you as a brand-name drug you’re taking, talk to your doctor or pharmacist. Tell them you want the most effective drug at the best price, and that you want prescriptions for generic drugs when possible. In India, procurement of medicines is coordinated through various mechanisms such as state- level autonomous bodies, state government- owned agencies, procurement division/cell of the state government, and public-private partnership arrangements.
Notable 2024 FDA decisions
Descriptive and inferential analyses have been based on empirical data extracted from authenticated data sources. Subsequently, a narrative strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis was performed based on the results of prior investigations and on qualitative data that were retrieved from a marketing intelligence examination to generate an overall scenario analysis. For example, melphalan to treat ovarian cancer cost the UK £1.82 for 2mg but in India its generic cost is 8p, a rise of 2,171%, the findings show. And ethinylestradiol to treat breast cancer which has a cost of 3p, according to the Indian generics website, cost the NHS £7.14 per tablet, a rise of 26,197%.
A SURVEY BASED STUDY IN CURRENT SCENARIO OF GENERIC AND BRANDED MEDICINES
Aurobindo has had numerous well-documented safety and quality issues, as well as instances of corruption and lack of transparency. At the same time, pharma imports from China and India increased their share of total pharma imports, reaching 58% by weight. While imports from those two countries dominate the $208 billion in total imports, their dominance is much greater in specific drugs and medicines, sometimes reaching 100%. In many cases, pharmaceuticals from India are dependent on ingredients or starting materials that come from China.
Pharma’s new age of longevity
Authors would like to thank the pharmacists, PMBJP pharmacy owners and physicians who participated in the study. The survey was conducted in two districts of Maharashtra, namely Mumbai metropolitan region and Palghar. In terms of per capita income, Maharashtra is one of the richer states in India and Mumbai is its capital city. With a population of more than 20 million, the city is one of the most populous urban centres in the world. It has the distinction of being home to the largest slum population in any city in the world, displaying a high level of income inequality.
Teva Announces New Patient Access Program with Direct Relief to Provide Access to Inhalers for Unins…
The Indian Government in its interim Budget for financial year 2024–2025 has allocated an amount of Rs 90,658.63 crores to the Ministry of Health, which constitutes a 12.59% increase from last year, reflecting the Government’s prioritisation of development of the Indian healthcare system. That’s what they call hepatitis C, which is so common in parts of India’s Punjab state that the tailor-shop gossips might not be off base in their estimate. Drugmakers have made the village of Lande Rode one of the theaters in a battle to grab market share for sofosbuvir, a miracle cure that Gilead Sciences Inc. sells in the U.S. as Sovaldi at a retail price of $1,000 a pill. Gilead licensed 11 Indian companies to make generic versions, and they sealed marketing deals with others.
The Bureau of Pharma Sector Undertakings (BPSU) working under the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Government of India, was entrusted with the responsibility of implementing JAS, i.e., to coordinate procurement, supply and marketing of generic drugs through JAS outlets. The scheme envisaged to sell generic medicines at affordable prices through exclusive outlets namely JAS stores across the country, starting from the district to sub-divisional headquarters and to towns and villages. However, JAS never really took off; there were only 99 JAS outlets across India which were selling 131 medicines till 2014. According to a study, the availability of medicines in JAS was abysmally low (33%) [13, 14]. Against this backdrop, in September 2015, the union government decided to expand its generic drug scheme called “Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Pariyojna (PMBJP)”, which envisaged making unbranded quality-assured generic medicinesFootnote 4 available at affordable prices to all people and especially the poor.
On the other hand, Palghar is an economically backward district with a population of nearly 3 million and is primarily inhabited by the tribal people. Others are not so sure anything has happened to dramatically curb manufacturing shortcomings, and argue that far from being too strict, the FDA ensures only the minimum standards are maintained. India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare did not respond to a request for comment. The chief drug regulator, however, has said he plans to add hundreds more staff and promised more oversight of the manufacturing process, while signing a co-operation agreement with the FDA last year. Three years ago, an Indian parliamentary committee looking at the drug-approval process concluded regulators were often in bed with the companies they governed, putting consumers’ interests last.
Overall, the pharma and healthcare industry in India presents tremendous potential for growth especially in innovation, research, early detection, and futuristic solutions like robotics-assisted surgery. By leveraging its strengths, embracing technological advancements, and fostering collaboration, the Indian pharmaceutical industry can continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the future of healthcare delivery both domestically and internationally. Making the healthcare supply chain resilient will require end-to-end supply chain visibility through digitalisation and use of global standards which facilitate interoperability. According to the study, “over 80 per cent of the Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Manufacturers do not have product visibility till point of care. In October 2023, OPPI and EY conducted primary research, engaging with approximately 40 Chief Executive Officers (CXOs) representing prominent Indian and multinational pharmaceutical companies, as well as other industry organizations.
- As such, pharmaceutical companies are permitted to increase the prices of their drugs by this percentage.
- In 2004, he noticed a generic antibiotic produced for the Indian market failed to curb his son’s severe ear infection; a switch to the brand-name version knocked down the boy’s worrying high fever overnight.
- In this article, I’ll discuss why drugs frequently cost so much more in the U.S. than they do in other countries, why this disparity may be justified, and where we go from here.
- There is a significant ongoing investment in automating manufacturing and packaging processes to enhance productivity, operational cost efficiency, and labeling precision.
- While drug pricing control on essential medicines is critical to ensure affordability and access to pharmaceutical products, it may have an adverse effect on value creation and innovation in pharmaceutical products.
- Any medicine information provided on this website is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for specific or medical advice.
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All these factors are making the larger Indian players conscious of how best to evolve from their current offering. “I would also advise to focus strongly on reliable quality and being ahead of the curve on FDA requirements, to rapidly establish yourself,” he continued. The price ceiling policy has been in place for more than two decades, but it has neither been very successful nor free of consequences for pharma companies. Instead of the existing price controls, other mechanisms such as promoting competition among local manufacturers and increasing public healthcare spending should be focused on. It remains to be seen if the NPPA will schedule additional price adjustments for essential medicines in the current fiscal year ahead of the national elections, which are set to take place between 19 April and 1 June 2024. India’s independent drug pricing regulator, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), has issued a marginal increase of 0.0055% to the maximum retail price (MRP) of medicines included in India’s national list of essential medicines (NLEM), which took effect on 1 April 2024.
Machine Learning Approach to Study Social Determinants of Chronic Illness in…
- Likewise, cost-effective, affordable, and quality services are linked to mechanisms promoting rational and scientific prescription practices of authorized providers.
- Cost is the primary reason, with 91% citing it as the driving factor, followed by availability (34%).
- The study protocol was approved by the School of Health Systems Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
- As a sign of the shift, Canadian generic giant Apotex Inc. locates about 10% of its production at two Indian factories.
- The informed written consent of study participants’ including the pharmacists of surveyed PMBJP outlets was obtained prior to conducting interviews and reviewing stock records.
- While significant challenges remain, particularly in terms of infrastructure and workforce distribution, the opportunities for growth and improvement are substantial.
- The following investigation provides general elements for the examination of the current and expected scenarios of the Indian pharmaceutical sector to respond to RQ1 and RQ2.
- For the industry to retain its position as the largest generic drug supplier, it must continue improving regulatory compliance of manufacturing sites, as well as developing cost-effective and high-quality manufacturing processes.
The industry benefits from cost competitiveness, driven by factors such as lower labor costs, economies of scale, and efficient manufacturing processes. This cost advantage enables Indian pharmaceutical firms to provide competitively priced products both domestically and globally. The extensive scale and diversity of the Indian pharma industry offer resilience and adaptability to the demands of supply chain, enabling it to cater to diverse needs and maneuver through market fluctuations effectively. Such a widespread presence on the global stage underscores the importance of robust supply chain networks capable of meeting stringent regulatory mandates, ensuring high-quality standards, and overcoming logistical hurdles. According to DPCO, the trade margins in the pharmaceutical supply chain should be reduced to allow better penetration of medicines under DPCO and allow a larger population to obtain access. The first-line sellers will receive different percentages of margins to apply, including distributors, wholesalers, retailers (chemists) and hospitals.
HEALTH SYSTEM FACTORS INFLUENCING SUPPLY CHAIN OF MEDICINES
In response to this growing regulatory environment, pharmaceutical companies in India continue to strengthen their processes, while improving automation, operating procedures and quality management systems. This includes vigorously efficient quality control and quality assurance systems alongside training programs and workshops, building an omnipresent culture of quality. The result is a focus on quality that starts at a shop-floor level for machine operators, ensuring compliance from the ground up. In the past few years, expectations of regulatory organizations around the world have increased. With the number of companies and manufacturing facilities supplying to the regulated market growing fast, it is natural that the agencies are intensifying their efforts.
- Reservation or allocation of land for the health-care sector will boost the growth and development of the industry, resulting in employment and self-employment of health-care staff, even at the pharmaceutical level.
- The Bureau of Pharma Sector Undertakings (BPSU) working under the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Government of India, was entrusted with the responsibility of implementing JAS, i.e., to coordinate procurement, supply and marketing of generic drugs through JAS outlets.
- The website is regularly updated by the Trust with assistance from Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Government of India.
- Dhiraj Singh/BloombergAbout one in 20 of Canada’s finished drugs are now made in India – roughly 20 million prescriptions a year.
- However, as shown in Table 2, PMBJP medicine list has as many as 130 FDCs in different therapeutic categories.
- If anything, recent Indian policies are sending a signal that intellectual property is tenuous in this country and will be granted only in those cases where it can benefit India.
- Importantly, beyond presenting an evidence-based case that generics manufactured in India are efficacious and safe, we must also demonstrate the enormous good these drugs provide to consumers.
In most of the states, free medicines were restricted to targeted beneficiaries like BPL families, beneficiaries of JSSK, Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), and enrollees of state-specific insurance schemes. Even among the beneficiaries, the range of medicines given free of cost was not as per the EML nor based on epidemiological load. In Colombia, data exclusivity increased the public health system’s costs by $396 million between 2003 and 2011. Meanwhile, in 2006, the Korean National Health Insurance Corporation calculated that a four-year patent term extension would cost 722.5 billion won — the equivalent of $757 million at the time. This issue came to a head during the COVID-19 pandemic when, after relentless pharmaceutical industry lobbying, the EU and other wealthy countries blocked India and South Africa’s proposal to temporarily waive some TRIPS obligations for COVID-19 medical products. It was the influx of affordable generics from India that helped drive down the price of treatment from over $10,000 to under $100 per year, saving countless lives.
Here’s a breakdown of the cost differences between generics and brand names for over-the-counter and prescription drugs. To better understand the factors shaping these decisions, Tebra surveyed over 1,000 Americans and compared the costs of popular medications in five major US cities. This report explores how patient preferences, medication types, and healthcare tools like EHR systems shape the way Americans approach their healthcare choices. New drugs are protected by patents, so only the company that came up with the drug can sell it. Once the patent expires, other companies can get a generic version of the drug approved by the FDA and start selling it.
It is administered orally and requires careful dosing and monitoring by healthcare professionals to manage side effects and ensure the best therapeutic outcomes. Ms. Chawla has authorised and contributed to various academic articles and journals on topics relating to cyber laws and copyright laws. She has represented the firm at national and international conferences and conclaves in India and Dubai. Further, she has also conducted workshops on IP law for university students and has been invited as a judge for several prestigious moot court and negotiation competitions at the university level.
Be at the forefront of data-driven decision-making with a new generative AI tool that enables you to interact with our products and solutions like never before. Explore our library of insights, thought leadership, and the latest topics & trends in healthcare. When your destination is a healthier world, making intelligent connections between data, technology, and services is your roadmap.
According to Qyobo’s data, atorvastatin is available from nine different drugmakers, including companies based in Germany, Bangladesh and Turkey. But all of those drugmakers depend on an Indian company, Ind-Swift Laboratories Ltd, for the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) to make atorvastatin. And Ind-Swift depends on five companies, all of them Chinese, for the key starting materials (KSMs) to make the APIs. Unknown to American doctors or patients, the entire supply chain for this drug depends on China. The intense pressure to lower prices of generic pharmaceuticals has led to a different global structure. Generic production has moved increasingly to India and China as the lowest-cost manufacturing centers in the world.
She used the structured schedule to collect data on availability and stock-out of selected medicines and consumables. Those medicines not found in stock on the day of survey, the number of days of stock-outs in the last 6 months were recorded through manual checking of registers. We first reviewed the WHO-HAI core list of medicines, medicines that are listed on India’s Essential Medicine List and drugs listed under various national health programmes [18, 19].
In other words, drugs that can extend lives by stopping deadly diseases like cancer or AIDS, provide relief from excruciating pain caused by preventable and curable diseases are not available and accessible to more than a quarter of the world population. In India, despite the presence of a thriving generic pharmaceutical industry, a principal barrier to access continues to be the cost of medicines. (2004), 65% Indians or nearly 650 million lacked access to essential medicines and medicine constitutes 63% of household’s total out-of-pocket (OOP) health payments, thereby impoverishing millions of people every year [2, 3]. Indian pharmaceutical companies have been a critical partner in the supply of these drugs by providing affordable medicines for major health conditions that enhance patient access, improve management of health conditions, and bring savings and resilience to the overall health system. It also highlights areas of concern around lack of diversification in the manufacturing of Key Starting Materials and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients in the broader supply chain for affordable drugs and discusses the role India could play as a partner to the U.S. in de-risking this supply chain.
- This chapter has been written by a member of GLI’s international panel of experts, who has been exclusively appointed for this task as a leading professional in their field by Global Legal Group, GLI’s publisher.
- In my last two articles, I discussed the recent surge in prescription drug costs, the reasons for the surge, and possible solutions.
- Another major concern is that medicines are not available where needed due to an inadequate supply chain and to the absence of potential producers that may not be attracted by these restrictions.
- To compare and evaluate the price and quality of “branded” and branded-generic equivalents of some commonly used medicines manufactured by the same pharmaceutical company in India.
- India’s pharmaceutical industry is renowned for selling medicines to the world at reasonable prices, especially developing countries.
- The chief drug regulator, however, has said he plans to add hundreds more staff and promised more oversight of the manufacturing process, while signing a co-operation agreement with the FDA last year.
- It is mandatory for all the companies to give Form V that gives details of the product with MRP, PTR, taxes paid, etc to their distributors.
- This is also the case in India, where OOP healthcare expenditure accounts for more than 50% of total healthcare expenditure, despite India having among the lowest drug prices in the world.
In the present scenario, the changes in the patent regime may benefit MNCs, while domestic companies may face more challenges. Similarly, the threats possibly deriving from other low-cost countries – China above all – are real. The negotiations with MNCs, international rules and domestic regulations are imbalanced, while there are increasingly stringent regulations and nontariff barriers to generic drugs in developed countries (Dhar and Joseph, 2019). After the 1990s, India emerged as an information technology and information technology-enabled services hub for the world due to trained manpower, a very high number of computer engineers, and a cheaper workforce that could speak foreign languages, mostly English. Similarly, pharmaceutical research and development can be carried out in India by global pharmaceutical MNCs. India has many pharmaceutical, bioscience and chemistry colleges that churn out huge amounts of high-quality graduates every year.
Our all-in-one EHR and billing platform delivers everything you need to attract and engage your patients, including online scheduling, reputation management, and digital communications. On average, generic medications cost approximately 79% less than their brand-name counterparts, offering substantial savings for consumers. For more commonly used medications, such as allergy relief, patients can save up to 83% per prescription by choosing the generic alternative. These savings are a driving factor for many, particularly as medication prices continue to rise in the US. State experiences highlight the importance of an established IT- enabled supply chain management system. The designed digital architecture of SCM should not only facilitate maximum utility but also prioritize interoperability, real- time data management, and monitoring through a centralized dashboard in each state.
Supply chain management (SCM) is the regulation of the flow of goods, finances, and information related to products or services spanning from procurement to distribution to the end-users. Efficient SCM practices are important to ensure the timely distribution of the right products in the right quantity at the right place. Furthermore, the Indian pharma supply chain grapples with issues related to counterfeit drugs and supply chain integrity.
On top of all these problems is the large and growing national security risk as more and more drugs become dependent on suppliers from China. Even the common knowledge that we are becoming dependent on a small number of large drug companies for generic drugs understates the dependency on China. Qyobo is a software startup that collects pharmaceutical data from dozens of national and international databases to provide a picture of the drug supply chain that is not only superior to what the patient or the doctor sees, it is probably superior to the knowledge of the FDA.