The advances in technology and the impact of globalization necessitate more effective management of health environments at various levels of government and pharmaceutical industry in the Indian context. Changes in healthcare and health policies of the countries following the advancement of new technology and globalization put forth the relevance of the emerging concept of Pharmacoeconomics and its importance in managing the health environments, said Dr Rajesh Balakrishnan, associate professor, Department of Health Management and Policy, The University of Michigan.

He was addressing the faculties of Pharm D and PG students of the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Vel's University in Chennai. The programme was conducted in association with the Education Division of Indian Pharmaceutical Association. Dr Ishari K Ganesh, chancellor of the University has presided over the function. J Jayaseelan, secretary, Indian Pharmaceutical Association, Tamil Nadu branch was the Guest of Honour.

According to him, now the world is giving importance to patient centered healthcare in a changing drug pricing environment. The concept of Pharmacoeconomics identifies, measures and compares the costs and consequences of pharmaceutical products and services, and describes the economic relationship involving drug research, drug production distribution, storage, pricing and use by the people. It has a significant impact on the delivery and financing of healthcare throughout the world.

He exhorted the research fellows of the pharmacy college that while doing researches on the concept of Pharmacoeconomics, emphasis should be placed on outlining the basics of cost effectiveness theory and practices like various outcome models and an overview of different methods of economic analysis. An analysis should also be done on presenting the utility of these theoretical and practical frameworks in evaluating the efficacy in Indian health contexts.

According to Dr Rajesh, allopathic medicine is vastly practiced throughout India. The annual health care spending amounted to about 34.9 billion dollars in 2005 and 60 billion dollars in 2009. The number of health personnel in India is about 1.86 per 1000. As provided by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, he said, each government personnel provides healthcare service to about 15,980 people per year. The healthcare system financing is characterized as, 80 per cent by out of pocket expenditures, 3 per cent by insurance, 2 per cent by central government, 12 per cent by state government, 2 per cent by local government and 1 per cent by social insurance.

On the economic side, the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry has experienced a revolution in the last 15 years witnessing a tremendous growth of US 10,000 million dollars with exports amounting to US 35,000 million dollars. Experts predict that 2010 will bring in a market of US 20,000 million dollars in formulations and 6000 million dollars in bulk drugs for India.

He said by 2015, India will rise to be among one of the top 10 global pharmaceutical market competitors followed by US and China by generating an enormous drug sales of about 14 billion dollars. According to a recent McKinsey report, factors like rise in the income, healthcare coverage, availability of healthcare infrastructure in tier II towns in proportion to top tier towns and metros, market penetration by smaller pharmaceutical companies, adoption of product patents and prevalence of costly to treat diseases like diabetes, asthma and cancer will lead to ground breaking changes in the healthcare scenario in India.

However, intellectual property rights, drug pricing policies and liberal drug reforms are some of the problems faced by the Indian pharmaceutical industry.

Professor Dr S Ramachandran, vice chancellor, Vels University, professor V Ravichandiran, principal, Pharmacy College, Dr J Anbu, S Padma Priya, Dr K F H Nazeer Ahamed, P A Sreeja, Dr Rajalakshmi Radhakrishnan, S Suganya, N Venkateshan, V Lavakumar, K Bharathi Priya and K Punitha also spoke in the meeting.