Department of health and family welfare, Government of Telangana has decided to vend branded generic medications at low prices in distinct public pharmacies at government infirmaries under the label ‘Telangana Government Supply’.
A generic drug is modelled after a brand-name medicine and it effects one in a self-same way and provides the same clinical well-being as the already marketed medicines manufactured by renowned pharmacies. Be it in terms of safety, efficacy, strength, solidity, quality or even intended use, generic medicines are a competent substitute for brand-name medicines. In India, generic medicines are up for grabs only after a meticulous review by Drug Controller, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) and Drugs Technical Advisory Board. It also controls its variability from the brand-name drug.
TSMSIDC (Telangana State Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation) provides 600 distinct medicines to government pharmacies at a cost of Rs 200 crore which is supplied to it by 10 pharma companies out of a total of 168 pharma companies. These drugs are high-priced as they are predetermined by the global tenders.
This initiative by Telangana Government aims to bring down margins kept by purveyors and intermediaries. According to Chandrashekhar Reddy, Managing Director of TSMSIDC, the cost of at least 30% of drugs will fall if they are supplied at generic stores to be sold to the public. Back in 2016, a similar decision of selling the generic medicines at Jeevandhara shops was taken by the Telangana government in order to cut down the prices of drugs which resulted in a 50% cost deduction of the medicines as compared to the branded drugs in the market.
Moreover, the government is trying to reach the pharma companies and producers of generic medicines in order to probe into the matter of their not selling medications to the government agencies. Some of them claim that the reason behind this is the government’s draconian laws and their trepidation of being black-listed or debarred from the same.
