For all those who remember TrueMD — Awesome!
For those who don’t, here’s a refresher — TrueMD was a college project undertaken by some BITS Pilani students a few years back. It was an open source generic medicine database wherein, on entering the name of any medicine, you were shown its Generic version as well as other cheaper branded substitutes.
Here’s a detailed article as featured in Your Story.
Almost 80% of all prescribed medicines in the US are generic, while this figure is negligible in India. Now here’s the irony, India is one of the largest exporters of generics in the world…and guess who is our major client is…USA! Shocked? Check out this blog if you want to see some numbers illustrating the price disparity in similar medicines.
The sole purpose of this project was to help spread awareness about Generic medicines in India.
TrueMD was an instant success, with over 1800 developers making use of the free open source APIs to create their own awesome projects.
That’s all in the past…let’s talk about now.
Have you ever wondered that medicine is one of the few (if not the only) commodities in which the buyer has absolutely no say in the whole purchase process! This report by All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) bring to light a lot of muck and grime that plagues the Pharma industry in India.
Not getting into any gory details (just to keep this article in the ‘light reading’ category), we have to accept that even in this age of information, how little we know about the very medicines we or our family members consume. We know what the weather will be like for the next 7 days, and we definitely know where to get cashback coupons while ordering lunch…but do we know why the doctor prescribed you a Rablet for your acidity (after eating those momos from the roadside stall), or a Proxym for the muscle injury you had while playing football?
Now, TrueMD offers a variety of ‘good to know’ facts about the medicines that you, your parents, grandparents, or anyone in your friends and family might be taking — uses, side effects, precautions, pregnancy safety, dos and don’ts, storage conditions etc. You can find all this in a beautiful dashboard on our website : www.truemd.in. Just search for the medicine you are interested in.
Also, you can download the free TrueMD android app, which provides the same information.
What’s more? We now ship medicines to over 300 cities! To buy medicines from us, all you have to do is upload a valid prescription, and…no wait, that’s it! You’ll get a confirmation from our pharmacist once your prescription is verified, and your order will be dispatched.
I would like to add that in no way are we trying to say that you should stop going to a doctor and start diagnosing yourself. TrueMD is NOT a replacement for a doctor, and self-diagnosis and self-medication can be extremely dangerous. All we want is for you to be more informed about your medicines, just like you are about your food, or cricket!
So, let us start a campaign to eradicate ignorance about our own health, using the gift of the amazing technology that we have today!
#KnowYourMeds #askTrueMD
