Generics and Biosimilars; A Step Towards Sustainable and Low Cost Health Care.

Millions of people across the globe go without essential medicines resulting in many avoidable deaths each year. It's no secret that the cost of prescription drugs, including the life-saving ones has been rising far faster than inflation over the last few years. If we take the example of diabetes and as India has the largest number of patients with the condition in the world; it has been shown that patients belonging to the low income group in urban India were spending. 27% of their annual income and those in rural India 34% of their annual income on diabetes care; most of which was spent on purchase of medicines. This raises the question of whether current pricing of drugs is based on reasonable expectation of return on investment or whether it is based on what prices the market can bear. The price of pharmaceuticals has become an issue of great concern for people and governments around the world. Thus governments across the globe must make efforts to correct the present distortions around the concept of generic drugs.