The Navi Mumbai-based SIES College of Management Studies recently conducted a pharmaceutical convention titled "Pharma Vision" 2004, an open forum for pharmaceutical and healthcare industry.

Noted speakers from the industry spoke at the event.

Harcharan Singh, vice president, pharmaceuticals, GSK Pharma, spoke on the need to penetrate into deeper rural markets of the country, so that the rural poor could benefit from the recent healthcare advances. He also urged the government to improve the rural infrastructure that will help Indian pharma companies in getting easy accessibility to rural markets. According to him, foreign companies should adapt to Indian conditions and expand in the market. "GSK's strategy has been to penetrate rural market, which was degrowing at the rate of one per cent last year, in order to fulfil the needs of 70 per cent of India's rural population, which has little or no access to modern medicine," he said.

K V Ouseph, president-marketing, Concept Pharmaceuticals, was of the opinion that Indian pharma companies need to make maximum use of contract and franchisee marketing for gaining maximum penetration into the rural markets.

Mukesh Goel, head, consumer healthcare, Merck Ltd, explained the benefits of a brand going over the counter or (OTC). He said a company could shift its major brands to OTC if it meets the following parameters - The brand is not included in Schedule H category, it is ranked among top three in a particular therapeutic category, if the brand is prescribed by a specialist or a general practitioner for a minimum period of five years, the brand is a fast moving drug with an annual turnover of Rs 10 crore, the doctor's prescription of the brand is not serious, daily cost of treatment of the brand is less than Rs 10, and the brand is well recognised in the D-class towns. He highlighted over the necessity of taking the doctor into confidence before making a brand go OTC.

Farooque Kaliwala, GM, Cardiac Rhythm Management at India pointed out the lack of life support devices and other medical devices in Indian hospitals and healthcare centres. He said despite India being the second largest populated country in the world, it had just eight pace makers per million population compared to US' 910, and 0.3 defibrillators, compared to 250 units with the US.

GR Anand of Aventis Pharma, told the audience that Aventis Pharma would soon conduct work shops to train orthopaedicians on Rheumatology, as there is shortage of Rheumatologists in India, which is just 80 in number.