Role of governments and their reaction to branded medicine
It is interesting to analyze here, how countries act or react to introduction of branded or expensive medicines.
India, Japan, Brazil and China have price controls and compulsory licensing procedures that prevent innovators from enjoying high returns. It has become common for Indian health authority to control prices of certain drugs as the innovator's product prices are not affordable.
The latest intervention by the Indian government
is on stents used for heart surgery. Imported stents cost
a fortune between Rs 60,000 to Rs 200,000 while the local product costs around Rs 8000 to Rs 14,000). Such variations do not justify exorbitant pricing of life saving products.
US is more of a free market and the government allows prices to be determined by market forces. This has led to much criticism of highly priced drugs. The manufacturer's justification was that the market was very small and they were unable to recover the production and promotion costs.
Like Japan, South East Asian countries rely more on branded medication, which is due to the nature of medical training. There are also very few local generic manufacturers in these countries, which respective governments need to pay attention to. There is also a false belief that brands are superior to generics in the public and healthcare space, which is not the case in China or India. Globally, doctors are inclined to prescribe branded medicines because those companies heavily promote their drugs directly to doctors or hospitals. Ethical issues remain to be addressed as well. What can we do here?............