Continuously rising medicines cost-- Why ?

nRiTeCh

nRiTeCh

Skilled
I want to know why have medicine prices risen so much and still are rising at pretty fast rate.

Raising this concern because last week I walked into a medical shop and saw a couple furiously arguing and their raising voices for medicines they came to buy where they quoted that same was available last year for 60 bucks less etc. Shopkeeper obviously will have no part in this as simply said thats what came from co. and he did showed them last years bottles where the cost was something 140 and the new stock quoting 190 but that bottle was to expire in next month. Then few others too joined them.
Shopkeeper was polite and said they cant do anything but as a customer better write to the brand or approach consumer court etc.

And I too wanted to raise similar concern but never clicked. I remember buying allergy spray for 160 bucks just 4 yrs or so and now same one costs around 340 bucks, 120% inflated? I can feel the pain and can resort to the poor and needy public.

This inflation in prices is getting out of hand and seem medical brands are exploiting and making the most of it.

I wonder why doesn't govt. peek into as these are essential cum life saving services.

Want to know what all factors affects and determine the cost of medicines? If anything then at least the costs shouldn't rise by 120-150% in just a short span right?
 
I believe our government is learning from Uncle Sam. Not the development part but the fact that Education, Medicines, Hospitals, Cooking oil, fuel, etc are necessities which people will buy no matter what the cost. Sure they'll complain on social media or go to courts but eventually everyone gives in and pays ridiculous prices for these things.
 
A broken healthcare system, sporadic interventions in pricing, health financing issues and the lack of trained health sector resources are just a few of the major issues that define where India went wrong.
 
i ve niticed this too.. my mothers dibetic monthly prescription was around 1100/month now its around 1400/month..

all medicines have increased by few rupees gradually...
 
Just now live example.. bought one medicine and the latest stock bottle costs Rs. 386 bucks while old stock Rs. 342. Difference is just between mfg yr and expiry.. new one will expire in july 2024 and old one feb 2024. Same brand same all!
 
puns said:
timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Prices of medicines to go up a tad; companies seek 20% jump - Times of India

India Business News: Prices of essential medicines including painkillers, antiinfectives, cardiac and antibiotics could go up marginally from April, with the government al
timesofindia.indiatimes.com timesofindia.indiatimes.com

All external factors. Govt is trying to control but pharma I guess is using the situation to maximise profits
Click to expand...
I was hoping the reason was a gradual substitution of Chinese API's with Indian. Does not seem to be the case
 
There are a wide range of medicines under price control where annual price hikes are linked to overall WPI

For others there are no specific price controls. There has been a lot of cost inflation in the sourcing chain for chemicals, which has been flowing through. I suspect there are also opportunistic price hikes to make up for price caps elsewhere
 
API(active pharmaceutical ingredient) a major raw material, is sourced from China. Couple that with average rise in inflation due to both primary, secondary factors, hoarding, international market scenario, being greedy and you have the recipe.
There are multiple factors at play here. High prices are here to stay.
 
Last edited:
nRiTeCh said:
I want to know why have medicine prices risen so much and still are rising at pretty fast rate.
<snip>
This inflation in prices is getting out of hand and seem medical brands are exploiting and making the most of it.
I wonder why doesn't govt. peek into as these are essential cum life saving services.
Want to know what all factors affects and determine the cost of medicines? If anything then at least the costs shouldn't rise by 120-150% in just a short span right?
Click to expand...

Actually I want to counter argue that medicines are actually cheaper in India.

First, we don't have much R&D, most of the medicines are researched in Western countries, then they sell in India for an inflated price (even half of US prices is a lot).
Next our companies slowly start copying the medicines and start selling them at affordable (compared to US) or expensive but less expensive. When US or other countries protest to FTA or other world trade bodies that we are plagiarizing their medicine formulae then either nothing happens or the govt will categories them under essential drugs or generic drugs protecting our companies.
Also in India the margins are very low compared to other countries, hence a lot of the drugs made in India are actually exported to other third world countries.
The API or ingredients used by our companies come from China and any disturbance in trade or fuel prices can increase the input cost.

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I say this as I have taken medical assistance abroad and the cost of hospital visits and medicines will sink you without insurance and sometimes even with it. Much like we tell our US cousins to get iPhones and laptops from India, those coming from India to foreign countries are regularly asked to bring medicines from here. I am not talking just about the richer countries. The cost and availability of medicines in our country is one of the good things going for us. Especially given the fact that we can just go buy any medicine we want directly from the counter, which is strictly not allowed in other countries.


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On a side note I would like to mention that for most medicines the costs might be high but the margins are very low as the drug makes compete both locally and internationally.
But if you want to get into the business side of things it is very profitable to open a homeopathic or ayurvedic medicine factory or distribution. The cost of the medicine itself is low but the margins are better. I won't get into the exact details of it since even I am not directly involved in the business. A few of my friends have families trained in Western medicine while their non-medical side of the family have businesses in alternative medicine, which really perplexed me in the beginning.
 
My Mom used to take 1 medicine for her Diabetes which used to have 3 salts. In 2018/19, I think, govt banned medicines which had those 3 salts together. Now, we had to buy 2 separate medicines to get those 3 salts and the cost for us increased nearly 2.5 times. Over the last 2-3 years, prices for those have again risen. Thanks to these online delivery services, I am able to get as high as 30% discount on the medicines which helps a lot. Local discount was never more than 15% and then they reduced it to 10% when the 5% GST was applied.

We should now brace ourselves for a lot of inflation due to the war and the aftermath of economic issues that will arise from it.
 
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