Digital Therapeutics: Unfolding A Disruptive Innovation In Healthcare

On November 9, 2015, ‘The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)’ in an interesting article reported, “Your doctor may soon prescribe you a smartphone app in addition to drugs and physical therapy.” The hospitals in the United States (US) are developing new … Continue reading

Is Drug Price Control The Key Growth Barrier For Indian Pharma Industry?

The corollary of the above headline could well be: “Are drug price hikes the key growth driver for the Indian Pharmaceutical Market (IPM)?” Whenever the first question, as appears in the headline of this article: “Is drug price control a … Continue reading

Drug Price Control in India: A Fresh Advocacy With Blunt Edges

It is no-brainer that the advocacy initiatives to influence the new Government doing away with the ‘Drug Price Control’ in India has re-started by flooring the gas pedal. A fresh invigorating effort, apparently a pretty expensive one, has been initiated … Continue reading

India’s ‘National Health Policy 2015′ Needs Wings To Fly

Ensuring ‘access to healthcare for all’ has remained a key well-articulated good intent of all the successive Governments in India, cutting across the political regimes, since 1983. The Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare published the first “National Health … Continue reading

A Great News! But…Would This ‘Golden Goose’ Lay Golden Eggs?

On December 9, 2014, international media flashed across the world a great news item from the Indian pharma industry: “The first biosimilar of the world’s top-selling medicine Humira (adalimumab) of AbbVie has been launched in India by Zydus Cadila.” This … Continue reading

Moving Up The Generic Pharma Value Chain

June 2014 underscores a significant development for the generic drug exporters of India. Much-delayed and highly expected launch of generic Diovan (Valsartan) is now on its way, as Ranbaxy has reportedly received US-FDA approval to launch the first generic version of this blood pressure drug … Continue reading

With Free Medicines In, Would The New Government Revisit ‘Universal Health Coverage’ Soon?

Friday last, the new Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan reportedly announced that the his ministry would soon start work on distributing free medicines through public hospitals across the country. For this purpose the Minister would soon call a meeting of the … Continue reading

Is The New ‘Market Based Pricing’ Model Fundamentally Flawed?

After a long wait of close to two decades, when the Drug Price Control Order 2013 (DPCO 2013) followed the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy 2012 (NPPP 2012) last year, it appeared that the new pharma price control regime is more … Continue reading