The prescription medicines business in India is primarily driven by the field Indian Pharma Sales Managers. These Indian Pharma Sales Managers regularly visit the doctors to update them about the various medicines their pharmaceutical company makes/markets with an attempt to convince them to prescribe it for the patients. Indian Pharma Sales Managers also make sure that the medicines are available with the nearby retail chemist shops.
To develop the Indian pharmaceutical industry after Independence, the Multinational Corporations (MNCs) were invited by the Indian Government to set up their manufacturing facilities in India. But before 1972, MNCs were not keen to manufacture in India due to underdeveloped infrastructure and unavailability of required skill levels in India; they only sold their medicines in India. As a result, the Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing industry remained underdeveloped, and at the same time, the prices of drugs remained high due to monopolistic market situations
The Indian pharmaceutical industry has unique selling /marketing process. The marketer of prescription drugs is not allowed to advertise its products to patients who are the ultimate consumers. In the typical selling process, the marketer employs field force called medical representatives (MRs) whose primary job is to generate prescriptions of the company’s products from the doctor. MRs regularly visit doctors in their clinics or hospitals to update them about their company’s products (detailing), request them to prescribe the company’s products to patients, give free samples of the drugs, sometimes give utility. gifts to the doctors and try to develop a long-term relationship with the doctors. Along with this, the MRs also connect with the patients through medical camps and patient education/counselling programs. MRs also connect with the retailers and carry out sales promotion activities using gifts, trade offers/schemes. Retailers give MRs vital information about the ground realities about the company’s drugs sales vis-à-vis competitors’ drugs sales
