Disparity in cost of oral hypoglycemic agents available in Indian market
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20195269Keywords:
Diabetes, Oral hypoglycemic agent, Price variationAbstract
Background: Diabetes is one of the most common non-communicable disease worldwide, of which India has been crowned with the title of “diabetes capital of the world”. On an average a person spends 20% of his or her income for the treatment of diabetes per year. So, it’s become very important to conduct a complete cost disparity study among oral hypoglycemic agent available in the market. Information generated from the current analysis, will be helpful to doctors in choosing the right drug for their patient and for the health sector in successfully utilizing the available resources.
Methods: The study was conducted in the department of pharmacology AIIMS, Patna 2019. Price of the drugs per tablet/capsule/vial were reviewed from “Current Index of Medical Specialties” January-April 2019 and “Drug Today” October-December, 2018 for analysis of different formulations of oral hypoglycemic agents.
Results: The cost of total 16 drugs belonging to 6 different classes, available in 38 different formulations were analyzed. Total 44 different pharmaceutical companies were involved in the manufacture of oral hypoglycemic agents. Overall glibenclamide (5 mg) and bromocriptine (2.5 mg) showed maximum % price variation of 422.79 and 586.27 respectively. Dapagliflozin and canagliflozin both belonging to sodium glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors shows minimum price variation of 9.86 and 0.9 respectively.
Conclusions: The current study shows that there is a huge price variation among oral hypoglycemic agents manufactured by different companies and government needs to take essential steps to bring about the uniformity in the price.
References
Murray CJ, Lopez AD. The global burden of disease: a comprehensive assessment of mortality and disability from diseases, injuries, and risk factors in 1990 and projected to 2020: summary. In: Murray CJL, Lopez AD. World Health Organization; 1997.
Zhang YT. Editorial Health Engineering: Convergence Transforming Reactive Medicine to Proactive Healthcare. IEEE Reviews in Biomed Engineer. 2018;11:1.
World Health Organization. The global burden of disease: 2004 update.
Joshi SR, Parikh RM. India; the diabetes capital of the world: Now heading towards hypertension. J Assoc Physici India. 2007;55:323.
Hardman AE, Stensel DJ. Physical activity and health: the evidence explained. 2nd ed. USA: Routledge; 2009.
Kashyap AK, Stein JC. What do a million observations on banks say about the transmission of monetary policy?. Am Economic Review. 2000;90(3):407-28.
Unnikrishnan R, Anjana RM, Mohan V. Diabetes mellitus and its complications in India. Nature Reviews Endocrinol. 2016;12(6):357.
Khowaja LA, Khuwaja AK, Cosgrove P. Cost of diabetes care in out-patient clinics of Karachi, Pakistan. BMC Health Services Res. 2007;7(1):189.
Greene W. The emergence of India's pharmaceutical industry and implications for the US generic drug market. U.S. Washington, USA: International Trade Commission; 2007-05.
Reece EA, Leguizamón G, Wiznitzer A. Gestational diabetes: the need for a common ground. The Lancet. 2009;373(9677):1789-97.
Drummond M. Pharmacoeconomics: friend or foe? Ann Rheumatic Dis. 2006;65(S3):44-7.
