Thanks to the latest generic drugs push by none other than the Prime Minister himself, pharmaceutical majors have put recruitment of field sales personnel on hold, at least for the moment.
Recruitment service providers like TeamLease Services said that pharma players are in a wait-and-watch mode when it came recruiting the field force personnel at the moment as if doctors prescribe chemical or generic names of pharmaceutical molecules instead of brand names, the entire tribe of field sales personnel would become redundant.
It is estimated that there are at least 3,00,000 field personnel in this industry across the country.
On an average around 800-850 field sales staff are recruited by pharma companies across India every month, informed N Sivakumar, Business Head, TeamLease Services. "At present, what we see is that pharma players are waiting for more clarity on the situation until they recruit more field persons," he said. The attrition rate in this cadre is high, around 25-30 per cent, and thus the recruitment process is a continuous one.
The chief of a leading domestic pharma company with significant international presence seemed to agree. "If doctors are barred from prescribing brand names altogether, there would be no need to have a medical representative. One would then deal with wholesalers and stockists only and negotiate on margins," he said choosing to be anonymous. He was, however, hopeful that doctors would be allowed to mention brand names in prescriptions apart from the generic names, thus leaving the choice with the patient. In such a situation, no major change of strategy would be required, he added.
As such big pharma employs anything between 3,000 to 6,000 personnel per company in field force. "It primarily depends on how many therapy segments one is present in, and what is the growth target," informed the business head of cardiology of an Ahmedabad-based pharma major. A human resources official in an Ahmedabad-based leading pharmaceutical house too confirmed that companies indeed are now wary of recruiting new field force.
The Union health ministry has recently asked the medical community to adhere to a 2016 notification by the Medical Council of India (MCI) which basically asks doctors to prescribe medicines by generic names in clear legible handwriting, preferably in capital letters.
Pharma associations, however, are planning to push for inclusion of brand names in the prescription.
S V Veeramani, president of the Indian Drug Manufacturers' Association (IDMA) said that they planned to write to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) next week explaining the market situation and urging that both generic names and brand names are mentioned in the prescription. "At present, there is not enough stock for generic medicines in the Indian market, and patients might face difficulties in case prescriptions mention only generic names," he said adding that as such India is largely a branded-generics market.
The share of branded generics in the domestic market is around 96 per cent, informed D G Shah, secretary general of the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), an umbrella body of domestic drug makers. Of the major pharma firms, Lupin and Cipla make generic medicines apart from half a dozen others, claim industry sources.
"The main intention behind the PM's point is that poor should have access to medicines, and if that issue can be addressed, we should not ideally erode the brand equity of our pharma industry," Shah said. He explained that several importers (mainly from African nations etc) go by established brand names, and pushing the entire industry to generic would in the long run harm export potential of branded generics from India.
What are generic medicines? It is basically a bioequivalent to a brand name product in dosage, strength, route of administration, quality, performance, and intended use.
Both Shah and Veeramani agree that there is also an issue of lack of bioequivalence studies in this space. "We are trying to follow a US model where a large section of the market lies with patented products, and bio-equivalence studies are done comparing with a patented molecule," Veeramani said.
He further explained that in India, however, which is a branded generics market, at best bio-equivalence could be done comparing with a leading product. However, a leading brand may use different active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) at different times depending on availability and costs. This practically makes bio-equivalence studies difficult.
Meanwhile, trade wants a 50 per cent margin for generic medicines as against an approximately 30 per cent margin in case of branded generics, informed Shah. Abhay Kumar, president of the Indian Pharmacist Association (IPA), a national level association of pharmacists, confirmed the same. "We welcome the government's initiative, however, it would take time to move from branded generics to generic," he said.
As such there are one million registered pharmacists in India and around 100,000 are added to the workforce every year. In comparison, there are around 6,00,000 stockists and wholesalers of medicines in India, and the number of retailers is far higher. A pharmacist needs to be present at every retail outlet to dispense medicines according to the new directive, which seems to be practically impossible.
Also, the Jan Aushadhi stores, a government initiative to sell generic medicines, at present sell around 600 medicines as against 4,000 odd combinations sold in India. There were around 861 Jan Aushadhi stores in India as on March 2017. The initiative has not taken off in the way the government would have expected. Mails sent to the department on procurement plans, remained unanswered.