India Pharma Outlook Team | Thursday, 07 April 2022
Technology can propel increased use of generic drugs giving prescribers information on the diseases it can cure and provide the medicine substitution options to pharmacists, said Dr. Suresh Saravdekar, Ex- Honorary Consultant, Institute of Medical Sciences , BHU, Varanasi and Assistant Director, Directorate of Medical Education & Research, Maharashtra. While there is an increased acceptance of technological development in healthcare, in the area of essential drug monitoring a lot needs to be done.
Many product gaps and delivery challenges remain unmet. This is because the priorities in research are not ‘need based’ but ‘market based'. The reality is that there are about 10,000 diseases world over including orphan diseases which are left untreated as medicines are unavailable, he added.
“We need generic medicines, because inadequate funds for purchase and making it impossible to provide all medicines free of charge to the patients visiting public hospitals. This leads patients to purchase procure the medicines as out of pocket expenses outside hospital. Further there is also a competition to sell the medicines leaving every firm to sell medicine at best price of their choice,” stated Dr Saravdekar. Globally technology has transformed all aspects of medical treatment with the adoption of artificialintelligence (AI),
machine learning (ML) & deep learning (DL). Therefore, India also needs to implement technology to be able to provide a right mix of generics and its availability for all diseases, said Dr Saravdekar delving on the Challenges in Promotion of Generic Drugs Use in India at a recently concluded virtual event by department of pharmacology, AIIMS,Hyderabad.
So the same medicine is sold in open market by at least hundred firms masking its identity and labeling it with thousands of different names like branded generics. Consequently, the market is flooded with lakhs of medicines and same medicine is available at 100% higher price and also at one tenth price of the other company’s rate to the patients, he stated. The main challenges are availability of essential medicines which are generics and its accessibility in India. There is inadequate public fund allocation for procurement of generic medicine by the state and the promotion of non-essential generic medicines at the cost of essential medicines by the industry.
But technology has revolutionized all concepts of medical treatment and health needs. We are in an era where all the health needs have been identified by technology well in advance and the pace of new medicines launches have increased with use of technology in drug discovery, said Dr Saravdekar. Questioning whether all essential medicines available for all diseases, he said that the irony there are medicines for diseases and medicines for diseases caused by medicines.
The detail is that medicines are available only for 500 diseases which are prevalent mainly in rich and developed countries. Consequently, the scale of the development does not match the scale of people’s need for better access to medicine, particularly in low income countries and low-income groups in middle-income countries, he said.
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