The Indian Drug Manufacturers' Association (IDMA) is wary of the government's plan to come out with a legal framework to make doctors prescribe generics. The Association fears that such a move will badly hit branded generics production causing a serious threat to survival of Indian pharma industry.

The proposed move will also lead to a huge loss of employment to both technical and non-technical personnel in the Indian pharma industry. Branded generics constitute more than 80 per cent of the total market of Rs.one lakh crore plus. This has evolved over the years through doctors’ preference and patients’ acceptance, said the industry body in letter to Nripendra Mishra, principal secretary to Prime Minister.

It further said that the government initiative will shift the right to choose the product from the doctors to the chemists which will have serious implications with regard to margins and accountability. Chemists are likely to push products for which they get higher margin with the result that the determining factor will be profitability and not quality. In some of the pharmacy shops, the salesmen who are not adequately qualified may be pushing such products and the patient may not be assured of good quality products.

Eliminating brand names will jeopardize quality treatment and will be against patient interest. It will subsequently lead to de-growth in pharma industry which has been supplying quality medicines at reasonable prices to the Indian public over the years, said Deepnath Roy Chowdhury, national president of IDMA.

Echoing the government concern to make medicines affordable for all, Chowdhury said that price control is not the only option to improve affordability and accessibility of drugs to the common man. In fact government should abolish tax on all medicines and also subsidise the price of medicines as is done the world over. Free medicines can be provided to the poor people through government hospitals for which there is a need for increase in outlay of healthcare, he suggested.

Indian drug prices are already the lowest in the world. However if there is an opportunity to further reduce price of essential drugs, industry is ready to co-operate and sit with the government to explore possibilities in this regard, he opined.

The IDMA appealed to the government to allow both the branded and generic products to be co-prescribed so that the doctor can exercise his right to show his preference for a brand and the patient may decide whether to buy the brand or the generic version. They should complement and supplement each other to meet growing demand and innovation which is the lifeline of the knowledge based pharma industry. Both the branded and the generics market can co-exist in India without much disruption.