At Medkart, we are trying to redefine how the end-user purchases medicine by eliminating the idea of over-reliance on doctors and drug stores. Our thorough market investigation on medicinal buying behavior has led us to conclude two significant factors for buying medicines;
– Patients don’t like to question doctors about medicines
– Patients lack elementary education on generic drugs to the extent that they don’t even know that there are two types of medicines– generic and branded.
– There is no place where the customers can get the right information about generic drugs.
Time and again, we have written about how generic and branded are no different {link TL3}, but due to the lack of knowledge between the two, that creates awareness problems. The problem is that there are not enough spaces for customers to get the right education. We are fighting our best to create awareness regardless of where the customers buy those generic drugs. The idea is to drive a strong sense of ‘saving more’ through generics and the ‘right to question’ your medicines.
Check for your own, this feature story by Zee News, where it indicates that the government has decoded the hidden scam of doctors and pharma companies. This episode focuses on how generic medicines are cheaper than the branded ones (because of the high retail margin on the latter) and why doctors should prescribe generic ones.
There are many efforts that even the government took to create awareness about the generic medicines, but it seems to fall on deaf ears as doctors still prescribe the branded medicines. Again, to get to the reason behind this one, we have written about the commission nexus in the pharma industry {link TL5}. Unfortunately, customers feel stranded because there seems to be no one listening to their woes of expensive medicines, especially the recurring ones taken for diabetes, blood pressure, etc.
And, it is not just the government who is making efforts. There is one episode in Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate titled ‘Life is Precious.’ This episode unearths the darkest secrets of India’s medicos, who are literally snatching from the poor to earn an extra bit of commission. At around 40 minutes to the show, you are introduced to Dr. Gulati, who speaks about generic medicines and explores the reason why they are not recommended.
And, at Medkart, we do nothing different. Anyone who walks into our store is given the right information about generics instead of selling the branded substitute. We believe that the first step is to create awareness that require the customers’ readiness to understand the difference between branded and generics. Also, they need to listen to their pharmacists rather than their doctor. We believe that this is an act of unlearning and requires a lot of resilience and patience for a group like us who rests on customers’ awareness and willingness to unlearn before making their purchase decisions. What we do is that we are driving knowledge-based purchases rather than promoting an already-existing transactional nature of such buying.
Therefore, we insist people come to us – to get the right knowledge about medicines and how to but those. We want people to be aware of what they consume rather than simply selling a packaged drug to be taken at a prescribed time. There are few players dealing with the generics in the market, which makes it difficult for the people to source correct information. Again, we promote generics for people to know the difference between them and save money in a long run.
