The initiative of the Department of Pharmaceuticals to set up generic stores in every district of the country through Jan Aushadhi project last year had taken off somewhat well. At least 30 such stores have already come up during last six months. Now, the project is facing trouble as the supply of drugs to the stores has become erratic. The public sector drug units which are expected to play a key role in ensuring regular supply of generic drugs to these stores, are not able to deliver drugs in time. Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Ltd was to coordinate the supply of drugs from its own plants and other PSU drug units. For whatever reason, this arrangement is not working the way it should and that is leading to a non availability most of the drugs in the generic stores. Initially, these stores are expected to come up in 12 states and in the second and third phases, they were to come up in all the remaining states. The project is an excellent initiative with right social agenda of making available essential drugs at affordable prices. It is possible that large pharmaceutical companies and pharmaceutical trade may try to defeat this initiative as the success of generic stores is bound to hit their profitability.
As the price control in the pharmaceutical industry has almost failed, opening generic stores is probably one way the prices of essential drugs can be brought down. But for that, the Department needs to have proper planning and determination to achieve the objective. Involving IDPL and other PSU drug companies will be certainly helpful as they are not keen only in profit making. They have the capability and capacity to produce quality drugs if some regular modernization of their manufacturing facilities are undertaken. The Department has identified a basket of 300 widely used drugs belonging to different therapeutic groups to be sold through these stores. The basket has to include drugs required for some of the widely prevalent life style diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular problems and cancer as the disease profile of the country has vastly changed. Most of the drugs for these diseases are outside price control and are highly priced. For instance, the price of widely prescribed anti cholesterol drug, simvastatin, is Rs 11 a tablet whereas cheaper brands of simvastatin tablets with price ranging Rs 2 to Rs 6 for a tablet are also available in the market. But, physicians prescribe mostly Simvotin, the brand costing Rs 11 and not the cheaper brands. In the case of blood thinning drug, clopidogrel, doctors' choice is Plavix costing Rs 100 per tablet whereas another clopidogrel brand, Antiban costing Rs 3 produced by Blue Cross Labs is hardly prescribed. These drugs and many more like them need to be taken daily by patients for life long. It is important, therefore, that such life saving drugs should be available as generics in these Jan Aushadhi stores. Apart from making these drugs available as generics, physicians have to be motivated to prescribe generics not just in government hospitals but also in private clinics. Currently, the practice of prescribing generic drugs is non existing among the medical practitioners in the country.