Supreme Court Intervened…But ‘Price Control’ needs striking a right balance between ‘Affordability’ and ‘Availability’ of medicines for Patients’ Sake

On October 3, 2012, the Supreme Court bench of Justice GS Singhvi and Justice SJ Mukhopadhayareportedly asked the government not to disturb the existing price control mechanism while including all medicines featuring  in the National List of Essential Medicines 2011 (NLEM … Continue reading

Prescribing medicines by generic names…a good intent… but is it a practical proposition in India?

Parliamentary Standing Committee for Health and Family Welfare in their recommendation to the ‘Rajya Sabha’ of the Indian Parliament on August 4, 2010, recommended prescription of medicines by their generic names. This recommendation appears to be based on the premises … Continue reading

MCI has been dissolved but the guidelines to doctors must remain, carefully sanitizing the ambiguities within the process

The recent developments within the MCI are indeed very disturbing and were definitely avoidable, if appropriate checks and balances were in place within the system. Even after the immediate ‘damage control measures’ by the Government, I reckon, the stigma on … Continue reading

Emerging markets and a robust oncology portfolio expected to be the future growth engine of the global pharmaceutical industry… but not without associated pricing pressures.

When the growth rate of the developed markets of the global pharmaceutical industry started slowing down along with the declining R&D productivity, the emerging markets were identified as the new ‘El-Dorado’ by the global players. At the same time, new … Continue reading