Drug pricing

The need for transparency in drug pricing is getting severe with increased spending on medications with each passing year. Drug spending in the US, without the discounts, has been reported to be $309.5 billion in the year 2015, which is about 8.5% higher than that reported in the preceding year. (1) As a result, undoubtedly, […]

Drug prices are generally not static. The price of a drug is high when it is newly introduced in the market and is on-patent. After the expiry of patent, the introduction of generic drugs in the market can significantly reduce the price of the drug, sometimes even up to 90% less. In India, drug prices […]

Drug prices in the US are the highest in the world, which necessitate new or alternate payment approaches. For instance, the new treatments for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are highly effective and very expensive at the same time, at least from the view of many payers, physicians, and patients. Even 5 years after these […]

Traditionally, the pharmaceutical industry has always been dependent upon the ‘push’ strategy for successful market access for products. The drug approval process, involving submission of data on efficacy, safety, and tolerability to the regulatory agencies, used to be simple; which ended with the drug being marketed to the targeted physicians and dispensed by pharmacies post approval. […]

Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a major tool for improving ease of doing business in India. It is considered as the biggest tax reform since the time of Independence, and will subsume excise and service tax, and various other local levies including VAT. The passing of this bill has grabbed the attention across all […]

All branded drugs are of good quality – Fiction Majority of the branded drugs are of good quality – Fact All generic drugs are of good quality – Fiction Majority of the generic drugs are of good quality – Fact All pharma companies take pro-patient initiatives – Fiction Few pharma companies take pro-patient initiatives – […]

The fifth and last union budget for the present term of the BJP government focuses mainly on agriculture and rural economy. Besides, this budget  is also promoting education and health (1). Healthcare demands a national priority status and requires allocation of more funds to deliver affordable and quality healthcare services to all. Health budget was […]

Rapidly rising cost in healthcare is an increasing cause of concern across the world. Indian healthcare is also experiencing a change, with increasing focus on better quality of medical care services. As per the available information, the healthcare spending per capita per annum in India has been observed to be about $109, with total healthcare […]