Tag: Patient Awareness

  • Patient awareness – what should a customer do? Where to go?

    Patient awareness – what should a customer do? Where to go?

    Patient awareness image

    In India, the pharmaceutical market turnover reached US$19.14 billion in FY19, with the top 5 pharma companies in India claiming the majority of the share. This means there are pharma giants who rule the market and command the prices which leads to medicinal poverty. Some people cannot afford costly medicines, and they don’t know that there are cheaper alternatives available. And here’s where awareness plays a crucial role.

    Medkart promotes the AAA philosophy<link to AAA philosophy blog> wherein the first A in the acronym is for the awareness. Why awareness? Let’s dig in further.

    Majority of the medicine buying is transactional in India, meaning buyers buy what the doctors prescribe. Unfortunately, most buyers are not aware of what doctors prescribe them and they are handed the expensive branded medicines in the prescription. It is their utter ignorance that leads them to not even question about the alternatives to doctors or pharma storekeepers. That’s when the exploitation starts, taking the buyers’ ignorance for granted and leveraging their lack of knowledge.

    At Medkart, we drive sales through awareness by educating people. Our sole goal is to create awareness amongst the buyer, even if they are not looking to buy generic. By doing so, we negate the transactional nature of medicine buying and make it more interesting for buyers similar to purchasing a pair of shoes or jeans. We promote healthy discussions on medicines on any of our stores and welcome them to gain knowledge. Being in the industry of over half a decade, we have all the information on pharmaceutical networks and how the doctors/hospitals lobby works at a higher level. In the end, customers end up paying more for the share that goes to doctors and hospitals. Remember, branded or generic, all these medicines are WHO-GMP standard ones, with most of them manufactured in the same facility. Still, the branded ones would cost you 10X of the generic. Meaning, you pay for the brand name, doctors, and pharma stores, and the manufacturers.

    As a solution to the medicine buying exploitation by the lobbies, we welcome people to come to Medkart with their prescriptions. No, we won’t sell you the medicines. We will show you the range of generic options boasting the same contents as your branded ones at much cheaper rates. We have helped over 3Lakhs of patients to save more than Rs.1100Cr. It is fascinating for us to have a conversation with the core buyers, understand their issues, and find better ways to address them. What is best is that we are also expanding our business line intending to spread our vision far and wide. This will enable us to tap into the right patients who are looking to save more on medicines.

    There is a section of society that puts a significant part of their hard-earned money into buying medicines. The least they want is the prescription from doctors suggesting them to buy branded ones. These people are also scared of trying anything else than doctors recommend, mainly out of fear of not experiencing its right effect or side effects. We are here to cater to that fear by providing them with the correct information without misguiding them.

    We are here, acknowledging the fact that a lot has gone wrong in the pharmaceutical ecosystem. With all-out might, we are just trying to correct whatever possible from our end. Everything begins with curiosity and awareness, and that’s when the greater transformation is possible. And we have just started.

  • Creating Patient Awareness – What should a customer do and where to go?

    Creating Patient Awareness – What should a customer do and where to go?

    Creating Patient Awareness

    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.