Let me show you a magic trick..

Today, I am going to show you a magic trick. Grab your popcorn and drinks!

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. (yup, The Prestige !)

The Pledge
The first part is called “The Pledge”. The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he may ask you to inspect it… see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it isn’t.

So I am going to ask you a simple question — how much is your family’s annual healthcare expenditure (a family of 4)?

~ ₹40,000 ?

Obviously this figure varies from person to person. But ₹40,000 seems to be as good an approximation as any.

Now how much of that is spent on medicines? According to a study, expenditure on medicines constitutes about 50% of the healthcare costs, which by the way shoots up to as much as 80% in rural areas.

So, taking 50% of ₹40,000, you spent ~ ₹20,000 on medicines yearly.

The Turn
The second act is called “The Turn”. The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary.

What if I tell you that you can bring your expenditure on medicines down from ₹20,000 to less than ₹2,000 a year?

Wait a minute ! How is that even possible?

Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call “The Prestige”.

The Prestige
The answer is right in front of you. By using Generic Medicines.

Generic medicines are the medicines which are sold by salt name (constituents) of the medicine.They are exactly same in terms of active ingredients, quality, performance and risk as that of branded medicines, but are much, much cheaper (some as much as 1000 times !).

Are they as strong as brand name drugs?
Yes. Generic drugs are just as strong, pure, and stable as branded medicines. (Source)

Yeah, but I am sure that they will take longer to work on my body!
Sorry to disappoint you, but generic medicines work in the same way and in the same amount of time as branded medicines. (Source)

Then why are they cheap?
Lower price doesn’t mean inferiority. They are cheap because:

• New drugs are developed under patents. A patent gives only that one company the right to sell the drug for a period of time (usually 20 years). This protects those who create the drug and pay to research, develop, and market it. Since India doesn’t have pricing regulations on most of the drugs, companies are free to charge whatever price they want to. Ironically, actual R&D cost of the drug. is about 10–20% of the price companies charge for it. Urghh!!. But more on these policy issues here
• Other companies can manufacture generic drugs when the patent is about to expire. Companies manufacturing generic drugs do not have the same up-front costs to research and develop the drug. They don’t have to spen

Whoa man!! The difference is huge !
Yeah, I know.

Then why doesn’t my doctor prescribe me with generic drugs in the first place?
That’s because there are huge, huge margins in branded medicines. And of course, we are ignorant.
Take a look at this list:

Doctors (not all) are wooed by pharmacy companies to prescribe branded medicines.

Okay so what do I do now?

I know its not easy to switch to generic medicines,ditching your doctor’s prescription. As a matter of fact, you cannot buy Schedule- H medicines without a doctor’s prescription.
So next time you go to a doctor, ask him… no…force him to prescribe you generic medicines or their cheaper substitutes.

Do you know that 8 out of 10 prescriptions in USA are of generic medicines (source). And guess who is the largest exporter of generic medicines….India. Irony!

It’s a shame for us that, even in 2014, people are dying due of lack of access to inexpensive medicines. What year is it… 1901?

I ,along with my friends, have built a search engine to help people search for generic medicines or cheaper branded substitutes of the medicines they are already using- TrueMD. It’s our small effort to make people more aware about generic drugs. If they will realize how much less they will have to pay, they may probably ask their doctor next time to prescribe generic drugs.

Screenshot of TrueMD

We have also open-sourced all of our data through our API. Anyone can use our medicine’s data to build awesome healthcare apps.

It’s our small effort to make people more aware about generic drugs. If they will realize how much less they will have to pay, they may probably ask their doctor next time to prescribe generic drugs.