NEW DELHI: Doctors and public health groups have come together to suggest that the government should phase out branded drugs in a calibrated manner and ban differential pricing under different brands to promote generic drug prescriptions. This comes in the wake of PM Narendra Modi’s announcement that the government was working on a legal framework to ensure that doctors mandatorily prescribed low cost generic medicines.
Following the PM’s announcement, the Medical Council of India had reiterated that doctors should prescribe generic name of medicines and said that violations would invite action under the law. All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), a group of public health activists and doctors, said the PM’s proposal to make generic prescription mandatory for doctors would be a useless and counterproductive step as a standalone measure. It urged the government to gradually phase out branded drugs, so that all medicines (except patented drugs) were available under the same generic name and not just doctors, but even pharmacists are unable to push specific brands.
"In the absence of universal availability of good quality generic-name medicines at retail pharmacy shops, merely getting doctors to start prescribing medicines under generic name will end up shifting the discretion to pharmacists who are likely to dispense brands that give them more commission," AIDAN said.
At present, most pharmaceutical companies market medicines under brand names. Moreover, it allows not only doctors to write brands of their choice but also retailers or chemists to push for brands or even generic drugs with higher margins.
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