Seamless digital healthcare services like telemedicine apps linking doctors from urban healthcare facilities to patients from rural areas and e-pharmacies delivering medicines to patients’ doorsteps are the prime results of Startups progression in India.
However, the challenge of managing data, especially in the huge and complicated pharmaceutical industry, remains the biggest challenge.
Small entrepreneurs consider developing an internal medicine database as the most common roadblock. This is where; Data Requisite is providing value as it was in the beginning is often overlooked. Many promising businesses suffer from roadblock problems for prolonged periods of time, wasting valuable financial and time resources on an issue that was previously accounted for.
The answer in this case would be to examine the comprehensive database of Indian medicines. One can go on and say that this is more than just an Indian Medicine Database. The proven analytics of having such a database can reduce the launch time to just 6 weeks from 6 months. Startups will be able to perceive the many high impact benefits of integrating a professional List of Medicines to the medicine database. This article aims at describing such benefits.
The Core Challenge: Why Building a Medicine Database from Scratch is a Trap
Every founder has been trained to construct. A pharma database, however, is a paradox case for the ‘build vs. buy’ scenario. Constructing a Pharma Database India is not a simple case of data entry. It is a field in itself, requiring undivided attention.
The Scale of the Problem:
The first aspect to consider is the size of the problem. The Indian landscape is teeming with brand name drugs, generic counterparts and different formulations (tablets, syrups, injections) and grades (10mg, 50mg, 100ml, etc). A truly comprehensive, the database we curate in Data Requisite has over 6.1 lac+ unique SKUs.
Each entry requires dozens of data points:
- Brand Name
- Generic and/or Formulation Name
- Manufacturer
- Strength and Dosage
- Pack Size (e.g., strip of 10)
- Therapeutic Category
- Drug Image
- Contraindications and Side Effects of the Drug
- Regulatory Status of the Drug Involved
The High Cost of Errors
In healthcare, a data error isn’t a simple bug; it’s a potential clinical risk. For example, entering a dosage of ’50mg’ when the intended dosage is ‘5.0mg’ can change the course of a patient’s life and so can associating the generic name of a drug with the wrong medicine. This situation places a startup at enormous risk of legal consequences alongside severe damage to its reputation even before the startup begins to grow.
The Never-Ending Maintenance
The List of Medicines is not static. It changes daily. New drugs are approved by the CDSCO, existing drugs are banned, prices are updated, manufacturers change packaging and new generics enter the market.
A database built in January is outdated by February. This process is the result of a separate team of pharmacists and data specialists who are tasked with monitoring the industry to update the database. This is an enormous operational cost for a startup.
The Strategic Advantage: 7 Key Benefits of an Integrated Drug Database
The negative outcome of transformations is turned into a positive outcome with the availability of a ready to use Drug Integrated Database from Data Requisite.
1. Ensure Clinically and Data Accuracy from Day One
This is the most vital benefit for a novice firm. Instead of spending 6 to 12 months targeting pharmacologists and workers for data entry to build a database, you can use, integrate and adopt a pre-built one in a matter of days. The set targets for the engineering team, can then shift to the core competency of the firm. Whether they need to build a better user interface for the app, a more smarter and responsive logistics network, or an more intuitive and responsive consultation platform, the targets set remain untouched.
2. Ensure Clinical and Data Accuracy from Day One
This step is achieved from an Indian medicine database which is professional that has been vetted, verified, and cross-checked by experts. This leads to a positive reduction of manual data entry errors. Whenever a doctor from your platform lists a medicine, there is a high level of confidence that the dosage and information regarding the medicine, the formulation and dosage, and even the side effects is 100 percent accurate. This immediate availability of trustworthiness is priceless, and an asset, for capturing userbase.
3. Simplify Regulatory and Compliance Difficulties
The Indian pharmaceutical industry carries a rigid set of rules and regulations. For instance, an e prescription has a validation criterion that must be fulfilled. A ready database has already been built to comply. It properly organizes Schedule H, H1 and X drugs, and your system automatically enforces rules (e.g., “prescription necessary”). This minimizes your complete operation’s legal risk.
4. Modify User Experience (UX)
A rich database drives deeper and broader seamless experience.
- For Patients: They view clear high-quality images of the medicine, understand its main application and its common side effects.
- For Doctors: A structured Indian Medicine Database offers advanced capabilities. It enables searching by a generic name to access all available brands or therapeutic class filtering.
- For E- Pharmacies: It enables users to easily retrieve necessary information, increasing the rate of completeness of the e-commerce transaction.
5. Enable Powerful Search and Substitutes
One of the distinguished features of modern e-pharmacies is the ability to suggest substitutes of much lower costs. This is only possible if the database maintains proper mapping of the branded drugs to the underlying generic molecules across thousands of entries. Such a dedicated database has this relational data built-in and enables you to instantly offer cost-saving alternatives to your customers—an essential loyalty driver.
6. Easier Integration via API or Excel
Flexibility is critical in how data can be integrated. For a new e-pharmacy that is still in the process of curating its catalogue, the comprehensive All Medicine Name List Excel file can be a lifesaver. It allows the entire store to be populated by means of a quick bulk upload.
For advanced platforms, a Medicine Database API is the preferred option. The availability of an API means your application can talk to the database in real time. This opens up a suite of capabilities including:
- Live checking of drug-to-drug interactions.
- Validation of e-prescriptions in real time.
- Resource-efficient real-time query capabilities.
- Automatic database refreshes.
7. Reducing Operational and Development Expenditures
Consider the cost you are able to eliminate:
- Data entry clerks.
- Consulting fees to pharmacists for data validation.
- Slow, complex, and continuously maintained schematics of a database driven due to many expensive system developers is another ever cost incurred monthly,
- And how and what has been created by the developers.
Changing to a database service is a default, “choose one” option when a system has unpredictable capital expenditure (capex) and replacing it with countless, predictable operational expenditure (opex) is a breeze.
Real Life Scenarios Applications: Impact of a Custom Ready-to-Use Database
Let’s discuss how this integrates for different healthtech startups for example.
For Telemedicine Platforms
One of the patients has hypertension and diabetes and is video calling the doctor. The doctor needs to prescribe a new drug. With the integrated Drug Database India, the doctor is able to:
- Search for the drug, by the brand or generic name
- Instantly view the standard dosage, and its composition
- Have the system, powered by the database API, cross reference, and flag interactions of the new drug with other existing medications and patient
E-Prescribing and E-Pharmacy
One of the E-Pharmacy Startups is to create catalogues for 50,000 medicine with pictures, descriptions and categories to launch an online pharmacy.
Rather than typing, they retrieve an All-Medicine Name List Excel from a provider.
Within a single afternoon, they go live with their entire product catalog.
If a user types “Paracetamol,” the database shows more than 50 brands that contain it due to its relational structure.
The “substitutes” feature is applied automatically, enhancing the value of the basket and the variety for the customers.
What To Look for In an Indian Medicine Database Provider
As with anything, the databases are not created equally. In choosing a provider, you are establishing a key partnership. Here is what to consider, based on our field experience.
- Comprehensiveness: Does the database only capture the surface of the market or does it include 6.1 lac+ truly market representative SKUs?
- Frequency of Updates: Ask them directly: “How often is your database updated?” The answer should monthly, if not more often. The pharma world does not sit still.
- Data Integrity and Authenticity: Where does the data originate from? Is it verified by a professional team? A reputable provider will offer you clarity on their data curation methodology.
- Ease of Integration: Value added services, what are they? A startup might start with the All-Medicine Name List Excel file but will eventually need a Medicine Database API at scale. Try to find a vendor who supports both.
- Customer Support: Is there someone you can directly communicate with if you have any queries or notice any possible anomalies? At Data Requisite, we have crafted a `living’ ecosystem with our clients to jointly identify and fix issues to improve processes.
Conclusion:
For a small healthcare startup in India, funds and time are crucial. Omitting the billing to fix a preexisting issue is a marriage of misunderstanding and strategy.
Your aim should be to work on improving the methods of providing services in healthcare and not dabble in the management of data.
Using the pre-built Indian Medicine Database allows you to overcome one of the major barriers to entry. You can deploy more quickly with a superior and professional offering. You ensure clinical correctness, compliance with all relevant regulations, and unlock your clinical team to work on areas which differentiate the business.
Engaging with qualified personnel at Data Requisite is more than simply a transaction. They provide you with the accuracy and the speed which will render my services in the future scalable.
