Wake up, Neo. There’s a glitch in the pharma matrix

The next time you pick up a strip of tablets at your neighbourhood pharmacy, consider this: the drug you just bought for Rs 170 may have left the factory for Rs 14. That's a markup of over a 1000%. And, it's completely legal.

In this piece, The Ken's Mutasim Khan traces how India's drug pricing system works, and why the pharmacist, the doctor, and the manufacturer are all optimising for something, while the patient simply pays.

This is a read aloud of Mutasim's original story, by Snigdha Sharma, on Daybreak.

📖 Read the full story on The Ken: Wake up, Neo. There’s a glitch in the pharma matrix

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Creators and Guests

Host

Snigdha Sharma

Senior producer and co-host of The Ken's flagship daily news podcast. Previously hosted and produced podcasts at The Indian Express and Newslaundry

What is Daybreak?

Business news is complex and overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be. Every day of the week, from Monday to Friday, Daybreak tells one business story that’s significant, simple and powerful.

Hosted from The Ken’s newsroom by Snigdha Sharma and Rachel Varghese, Daybreak relies on years of original reporting and analysis by some of India’s most experienced and talented business journalists.