Size increase of medicine strips by manufacturers puts retailers as well as patients into quandary

Chennai, January 12, 2023:

The new business strategy being adopted by manufacturing companies for more sales and profits by increasing the size of medicine strips with multiplying the number of pills contained in it has put the retailers as well as the medicine consumers into quandary as both the traders and the patients are forced to waste a large number of cut strips and pills unnecessarily.

This size increase of packing is the latest game plan worked out by manufacturers to become market leaders within a short span of time, but it creates problems for the small retailers and becomes a burden for the poor patients, says office-bearers of the chemist association in Kerala.
 
As the size of strip increases the price of the medicine also increases, but it becomes unaffordable and often unwanted as far as the patients who need a minimum dosage treatment are concerned, opines M Jayaraj, secretary of the All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association (AKCDA).
 
Giving details to Pharmabiz, he said the recently concluded executive committee meeting of the national trade body, AIOCD, in Pune, discussed the issue threadbare and decided to inform the manufacturers to make small packs so as to enable the retailers to avoid strip cutting. Small packets will also help the patients to avoid buying additional doses, more than those prescribed by doctors. He said the association will also apprise this difficulty in the business to the drug controller general of India.
 
The pharmaceutical trader said while cutting a long strip to dispense six or seven pills to a patient, the packet will lose the batch number, MRP and the expiry date. Strips without these pieces of information on the label cannot be sold, consequently the retailers have to bear the loss. And, such dateless medicines will not be taken back by the manufacturers too. According to him the traders get a huge financial loss because of this large size pack with more pills.   
 
Anwar Valiyakath, treasurer of the AKCDA said he lost medicines worth Rs 2000 in the last month sales because of not selling cutting strips of several medicines. He said major companies, MNCs, are increasing the size of the packs. Until a few months ago a strip of ‘Telma-H’, a combination drug of telmisartan and hydrochlorothiazide, used for treating blood pressure, manufactured by multinational company Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, used to have 10 pills, but the number has been increased to 30 recently.
 
Ranitidine-150, a drug to treat stomach problems and manufactured by the Indian MNC Torrent Pharma has recently increased the number of pills in a strip to 40 from its earlier packet of 10 pills. This is used rarely and a minimum of five or seven are only prescribed by doctors.
 
The strip of Warf- 3, a drug by Cipla to prevent formation of harmful blood clots in the legs, lungs, brain and heart, contains 30 tablets. The drug was available in the market in small strips of 10 pills a few months ago, says Anwar.
 
USV product, Roseday-5, a statin family drug used to lower cholesterol was available in a strip of 10 pills, but now it is available in larger packets with 15 and 30 tablets. ExpressPharma.in