Generic Medicine

At the outset,  let me say that the country is evolving under a lot of new method of practice in all spheres which means that there will be a sea of change in many of the areas and a Lots of people shall be in the current of change that they are being engulfed in.

With the heated arguments and the emotions running high, we tend loose our bearings in the heat of the moment.

At that point it is imperative that we step back a couple of steps to review the change around us. As is often said the clear thinking confess in still water and hence it is in the interest to be calm at this time rather than allowing the tempers to flow which will not yield the right results.

Let us take an argument. If we are following right method of practice. Then such things do not affect our practice not out thinking,  the people who react are those who do not trust themselves to be on right path and the fear of the crossing line be in the line of fire.

We must also realise more of the private setups do not cater to the poor sector at all. Even after the MCI has imposed the rules for generic medicine to be used across the country still you will find the doctors writing the branded drugs,  which make it difficult for the common man to be able to find equivalent.

For the sake of common man,  let us dig deep into the branded versus generic drugs. To understand this we need to India drug manufacturing process,  where we hv the bulk drug manufacturing and API drug companies.

The bulk drug companies manufacture main drug in large quantities  and sell into the formulation companies and only the companies which have the formulation license can make marketable drugs under the Ipma umbrella.

In effect the bulk drug is purchased and kind of processed in the formulation companies to make the medicines. We often here that the branded drugs often give better result than the local companies as the doctor call the shots,  perceivable wrong notion as I call this as,  this is pure chemistry behind,  once the bulk drug is manufactured in the formulation the property variance as it is more mixing,  blending and seperation which is more of dry process and then comes the tablet formation or the capsule filling process which makes it difficult for the chemistry behind the bulk drug to have a lot of deviation.

The last stage of this is the quality process during which the rejections are managed, there could some kind of gap here between large MNC and smaller companies which is the result of the company overheads and nothing to do with the drug as such.

The doctors to defend themselves in the bargain to be with the branded drugs have been beating this line and those understand the chemistry behind this will not agree and I tend to disagree that doctors are taught brand names in the school graduate out of rather they are spoon fed by y the MR who meet them to sell their drugs and may be with some return favour which we will not debate here however it is unfair for the doctor to take the line they will not prescribe the generic drug which has been shot down by MCI but still being evaded by the medicos which just goes to show that there is something more to read between the lines.

The fight will be on till medicos start using generic drugs in the interest of the common man.....