Monitoring generic medicines is important to prevent flouting of norms

It is often an odd situation since it’s not always the doctor who decides which company’s pharmaceutical molecule is eventually consumed by patients! In April 2017, the Medical Council of India (MCI) had made some amendments in its Act, thereby making it mandatory for doctors to prescribe generic medicines only. "Every physician should prescribe drugs with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters..."mentioned the Act. Despite this, the doctor fraternity cannot be monitored and compelled to follow this direction from the country's apex medical regulator.

No system in place

There is no way to monitor prescriptions of generic medicines ordered by honest doctors. The pharmacist usually dispenses what is cheaper to the pharmacist and has larger profits. There are many instances when a pharmacist does not provide cheap medicines even though generic name of medicine is written on the prescription. This is owing to the fact that the health department of the Government, Pharmacy Council as well as Medical Council has no mechanism in place that makes it mandatory for pharmacists to dispense cheaper generic medicines.

Sadly, even though India is the largest provider of generic medicines worldwide, when it comes to prescriptions in the country, branded medicines are highly recommended for patients. An average doctor has the impression that either the manufacture of branded medicines must be completely stopped or there must be standardization in the manufacture of generic medicines. They feel that to comply to the MCI directive (of prescribing generic medicines) there should be a total ban on marketing branded medicines in India. There is also a section of doctors that are opposed to the idea of making such prescriptions of generic medicines mandatory since they want regulations on pricing and quality of medicines.

All public hospitals, including Government medical colleges and hospitals, have been issued orders to abide by the MCI norms on generic prescription. Moreover, there is no criterion to ensure the compliance and no penalty if anyone is found flouting these norms of not prescribing generic medicine. Most importantly, it is difficult to make out if a medicine is branded or generic since even generic brand producers also issue brand names to their products.

Ban the manufacture of branded drugs?

The doctors have nothing to stop them from prescribing medicines they want for their patients. The question is: is it legal to authorize a chemist and decide as to which company medicines based on prescribed pharmaceutical molecular name prescribed by a doctor? Pharmacies tend to provide medicines that are costlier than generic medicines from unknown companies. So ultimately it’s the pharmacists that rule with regard to the generic molecule manufactured by which company will be sold, according to their profit. The doctor, health department and even MCI have no control ultimately. So before implementing such a rule, the government and MCI should ban the manufacture of all banded drugs. This will make sure pharmacists dispense generic medicines as per prescriptions.