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| Would selling drugs under generic names check fake and spurious medicines? | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 13: The drug policy approved by the State cabinet has left many questions unanswered which could add to sale and purchase of spurious, sub-standard drugs instead of checking the menace which must have been the spirit behind the announcement of the drug policy.
According to the new drug policy the doctors will prescribe generic names of medicines instead of the brand names in the future. The real problem lies here which has been left unaddressed. Many fake drug companies are selling life saving drugs and other medicines under various brand names and the better medical practitioners prescribe drugs manufactured by standard companies to ensure that their patients do not use sub-standard drugs. For example, azithromycin is sold by different companies under different brand names and the honest practitioner always prescribes azithromycin manufactured by a reputed company and not the one sold under some brand name by a fake company. Once the new drug policy comes into force, the doctor will be bound to prescribe azithromycin irrespective of which company has manufactured it as all drug companies are required under the new drug policy to sell all life saving drugs etc. under their original names.
Thus a patient going to buy azithromycin or any other anti-biotic for that matter would be left to the mercy of the dispenser who is left with a clear choice to sell the patient azithromycin manufactured by any company. Since the profit margin of medicines which are sub-standard or fake is always higher, in all likelihood the dispenser will sell the most profit making drug to the patient which would definitely have to be sub-standard to afford higher profit margins to the retail drug traders by the manufacturers.
Another simple example to illustrate the problem is if we consider an often sought after medicine like paracetamol. A reputed company sells paracetamol under the brand name of crocin while paracetamol is also available from some less reputed companies and even by those making fake drugs paracetamol is marketed under different names. While the retailer's profit margin for selling a tablet of crocin is just 10 paise in case of sub-standard paracetamol manufactured by fake companies the profit margin per tablet for the retailer is 90 paise. Once a doctor prescribes paracetamol under the new drug policy it should not be difficult for anybody to guess which company's paracetamol the retailer will sell to the patients.
The first step towards ensuring the sale of only standard and genuine medicines in the State should therefore have been to crackdown on companies selling sub-standard and fake medicines. Giving the retailers the liberty of selling drugs and medicines under the generic names might not be the remedy. It would instead add to the malaise. |
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