Expats In the Philippines ask for Medications made in India to get best prices. Here's why-

by Gilman Jones & Lakshaya Grover

his has been a topic of discussion amongst low cost healthcare activists in North America and Germany, Politicians and pharmaceutical companies alike. It is indeed true that the cost of many drugs is significantly lower in India compared to not only America, but the whole world. The primary factor that bloats up the cost of medicines in USA is the strong patent laws that protect the right of industry giants to monopolise the production of important drugs. This results in the pharma corporations demanding exorbitant amounts of money for essential life saving drugs.

United States has been a pioneer in developing new drugs and treatments, but the issue of corporate monopoly over the cost and distributions has stultified the dissipation of effective treatment to the ones who actually need it. The pharmaceutical companies, in a nexus with healthcare insurance companies artificially inflate the cost of drugs and often deprive the needy of healthcare. While this is unethical from a social perspective it is completely permissible from a legal point of view. The patent laws, especially in the US do not differentiate between technological innovation and medical innovation, this means that the way a drug is sold is left to the discretion of the inventor, which is most often a pharma giant. This is actually a vicious cycle, all of the innovation in US medical industry is a result of profit centric approach of the pharmaceutical industry, at the same time the benefits are not being reaped because of the same profit centric approach of pharma giants.

The case of India is peculiar, up until the early 2000s, there was no protection of intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies. This meant that it was perfectly legal for one company to manufacture a drug invented by another company without even notifying the latter. It obviously led to a lot of friction between India and the US at various fora including WTO. Indian government made sure that each drug produced in India was manufactured without any monopolies. Competitive environment created by these circumstances resulted in the rapid growth of pharmaceutical sector. The competition amongst the manufactures was cut throat, this led to a drop in prices. Every drug that entered the Indian markets was mass produced by several different companies and prices inevitably fell down. The doctors were happy because their pracitces grew due to the influx of foreign patients lured by the low costs of healthcare in India. India became the land of medical tourism, whatever that means.

The way Indian government dealt with the matter was commended by many because it ensured that the drugs reach every home at affordable prices. New regulations were introduced to prevent complete alienation of foreign pharma companies, but they were inadequate from a legal point of view.

The stupendous growth of India's Medicine industry was beneficial to India's sick, but at the same time it resulted in delayed entry of drugs in Indian markets, any pharma company was rightly hesitant to launch its latest products in India. This fear ensures that India is often the last major country for every new medicine, when all of profit intensive markets have been exploited. The delay is avoidable. Less regulation on pharma industry and mindless competition also means lowered quality of drugs.

In conclusion, India's medicines are cheap because India's government decided that the population’s right to affordable drugs trumps corporations' intellectual property rights. Whether it is right or wrong is for you to decide. And the cheap drugs come with their own caveats.