Government to procure medicines directly, aims to eliminate middlemen
To improve medicine quality and reduce costs, the Health Department will eliminate middlemen, allowing direct manufacturer tenders, ensuring all 865 required medicines are procured, and prioritising primary importers for foreign drugs.
To improve medicine quality and reduce costs, the Health Department will eliminate middlemen, allowing direct manufacturer tenders, ensuring all 865 required medicines are procured, and prioritising primary importers for foreign drugs.
To improve medicine quality and reduce costs, the Health Department will eliminate middlemen, allowing direct manufacturer tenders, ensuring all 865 required medicines are procured, and prioritising primary importers for foreign drugs.
Thiruvananthapuram: The Health Department has decided to eliminate middlemen from the procurement of medicines for government hospitals and Karunya pharmacies, allowing manufacturers to participate directly in the tender process.
The move is expected to bring down the procurement cost of medicines, including cancer drugs, by at least 20%, while also improving quality, according to the Health Department.
Comprehensive changes will be introduced in the medicine procurement system from the new tender process scheduled to begin in December.
All required medicines to be procured
The state has an annual requirement for around 865 types of medicines. However, only about 500 types were procured during the latter period of the previous government, according to Health Department data.
Health Minister K Muraleedharan has directed officials to ensure that all required medicines are procured through the new tender process. The government expects this to address shortages and reduce the need for patients to purchase medicines from outside sources.
Primary importers to get preference for foreign medicines
The eligibility criteria for foreign-made medicines will also be changed. Only primary importers will be allowed to participate in tenders for such medicines.
Companies that win tenders will have to supply batches of medicines to Kerala that are also being distributed in at least three other states. The system is intended to strengthen quality monitoring.
The Health Department said that since no single state has facilities to test the quality of every medicine, quality checks conducted across multiple states can help identify substandard products. If a medicine supplied by a company is found to be substandard during inspection in any of these states, the company could be blacklisted.
The department also said it would take steps to clear payments due to pharmaceutical companies within a specified timeframe.
Branded generics for cancer, lifestyle diseases
The government has also decided to introduce branded generic medicines to treat cancer and lifestyle diseases.
Until now, medicines for these conditions were procured from small-scale manufacturers. Doctors had raised concerns about the quality of some of these products, according to the Health Department.
Under the new system, branded generic medicines will be procured from large-scale manufacturers.
Branded generic medicines contain the same active ingredients and are available in the same dosage as their corresponding branded drugs. They are generally cheaper than the original branded medicines, although some branded generics may cost more than conventional generic medicines.
The government has decided not to prioritise the price difference between conventional generics and branded generics in these cases, with the focus being on ensuring quality in medicines supplied free of cost to patients.
What the government expects
The Health Department expects the new procurement system to improve the quality of medicines supplied free of cost or at subsidised rates, ensure the availability of all required medicines, reduce dependence on medicines purchased from outside sources, and eliminate medicine shortages in government hospitals and pharmacies