As many as 400 medicines including mass use pain killers and antibiotics are likely to get cheaper soon. Chemists will on Wednesday share with the government a list of medicines on which they are currently paid hefty trade margin by drug makers, for a possible cap on retail trade margins. Drug makers pay nearly, 1,000% trade margins on these drugs which are promoted thorugh chemists as companies do not have to invest in a sales army for informing doctors.
Chemists are ready to accept trade margin celing as this practice has been giving them a bad name while the revenue from these branded generics are less due to low share in the pharmaceutical market dominated by doctor promoted drugs called brand name drugs in India. Drug companies use marketing force for educating doctors of drugs which are newly launched while they use traders to promote the older ones.
The list includes painkillers like paracetamol and antibiotics like amoxicillin and ciprofloxacin,and has drugs that came in the market atleast half a decade ago, traders said. They account for around Rs 1,150 crore turn over a year, representing 5% of the total pharma market. There is third category of drugs called generic generics,which drug makers give directly to hospitals and doctors as samples.The All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists(AIOCD) will give the details to chemicals minister Ram Vilas Paswan who is committed to impose trade margin caps on them. |
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| Posted : 2/22/2006 |
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