It’s bad enough for taxpayers in this country to have overpaid for Medicaid drugs. But what if, by concentrating on this issue, you missed the one about infrastructure and access to healthcare?
That’s what’s happening in India.
Three experts from industry and government agree that inflated drug pricing policies are worrisome – and costly – but in their country, access to healthcare is a much bigger concern.
Daara Patel, Secretary General, Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA); Amit Bakliwal, MD, IMS Health; and Kewal Handa, MD, Pfizer suggests it’s more important in India to focus on the core issues that impede access.
They don’t feel a cost-based pharma pricing policy would be productive for that country, where drug prices are already low, and would continue to hinder efforts to improve healthcare access for the public.
Three industry forces – Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance and IDMA – have separately come forward and said the government must stick to its policy of correlating the maximum retail price of drugs with the market.
“Attempts to advance healthcare access via cost-based pricing miss the point that lack of infrastructure and appropriate delivery systems are needed to boost access,” said IDMA’s Patel. “Moreover, Indian pharma companies have always risen to the occasion and supplied medicines free of cost to needy patients or for deserving causes. To facilitate access, the government could abolish excise duties and taxes on the free medicines donated by pharma companies.”
Patel suggested in the press release that the government “could encourage public-private partnerships to provide universal access to healthcare, since it was not possible for public sector entities to themselves address all the complex issues involved in improving access.”
Medicine is supplied free of cost or with just a small payment for those with low incomes through the government in India, as is treatment. But there are only eight healthcare workers for every 10,000 people.
“In spite of India having a high disease burden, delivery systems have not improved in the country, impeding access,” said Bakliwal. “Although affordability is part of access, individually attacking drug prices is not the solution. Given the importance of research and innovation in the pharma industry, it is necessary to strike a balance between access and innovation. We also need to understand that even having free drugs will not solve the issue of access, unless the basic problem of inadequate health infrastructure is not addressed squarely.”
“It is not only a question of making medicines affordable, but also making them affordable in the right place for the right people. Cost-based pricing would simply not achieve this objective,” Handa said. “Going by the state of healthcare infrastructure in India, efficient healthcare delivery is far more critical than the pricing of drugs.”
Edited by
Braden Becker
