India to give free generic drugs to hundreds of millions

• India has put in place a $5.4-billion policy to provide free generic medicine to patients, vastly expanding access to drugs in the country, as reported Thursday in The Asahi Shimbun.
• Under the plan, doctors will be limited to a generics-only drug list and face punishment for prescribing branded medicines, and the government expects that within five years, up to half of India's 1.2 billion people are likely to take advantage of the scheme.
• "The policy of the government is to promote greater and rational use of generic medicines that are of standard quality," said L.C. Goyal, additional secretary at India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, adding that "they are much, much cheaper than the branded ones."
• Chris Stirling of KPMG said that "pharmaceutical firms will likely rethink their emerging markets strategies carefully to take account of this development, and any similar copycat moves across other geographies."
• "Without a doubt, it is a considerable blow to an already beleaguered industry, recently the subject of several disadvantageous decisions in India," Stirling added.
• However, he noted that "the move will please the generics manufacturers who stand to gain substantially in competing for contracts."

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