By: Hely Desai, P002- M.Pharm + MBA (Pharmaceutics)
Submitted to: Mr. Ashutosh Ojha
Ethicality in pharmaceutical marketing practices in India.
India is amongst the fastest growing pharmaceutical markets in the world. The ethical conduct of Health care professionals (HCPs) is vital to maintain professional autonomy, integrity and freedom in their interactions with pharmaceutical and health care organizations. Implementation of good marketing practices by pharmaceutical companies reflects their transparency and adoption of ethical practices in their operations.
In Pharma industry, direct-to-consumer marketing is not popular as patients rely on doctor’s prescriptions …show more content…
About $12 billion is spend on gifts and payment to physicians by pharmaceutical companies every year. This tends to impair the judgement of the HCP due to conflict of interest between patient safety and personal gain.
India is 3rd largest pharmaceutical industry in terms of volume and world’s 13th largest by value representing nearly half the Rs.93000 crores market. It is even complicated by a highly privatised health system, an uneducated customer base, and the fact of "cross practice”, though it is illegal in most states in India.
The sale of drugs was influenced by aggressive marketing strategies which included incentives to chemists. Doctors are encouraged by Medical Representatives to prescribe their products. According to Retail chemists the multiplicity of brands made it more difficult for them to stock all drugs and the risked being left with unsold stock. So they stocked the drugs of those companies which were promoted well. And other stock is cleared by convincing doctors to prescribe …show more content…
The increasing price and cost pressure, patent expirations on blockbuster drugs leading to aggressive generic competition, public policy and changes in how consumers access medicine are leading to erosion of profit margins. Today's companies are measured on how well their stock performs. The needs of patients are secondary. This has resulted in a greater emphasis on a return on investment from R&D and reducing the amount of capital it is allocated. In turn, this has increased offshoring, the elimination of in-house teams and the flight of scientific expertise into the pharmaceutical