Chemists gang up to form offbeat firm

Mumbai, Nov. 1 -- As many as 550,000 pharmaceutical retailers and 60,000 stockists from across the country have come together to form an offbeat company.

The firm AIOCD Ltd, will help government planners, pharma companies and non-governmental organisations working on community health by gathering statistics and creating it into a database.

The data to be collated from monthly sales figures from wholesalers would be disseminated to various stakeholders for appropriate action as well as to keep a tab on demand levels in various parts of the country.

The company, in a joint venture with Trikar Medi Infotech, has introduced PharmaTrac, an online database of region wise pharma consumption figures, which the Indian pharma industry and policy makers were looking for. So far they have been getting data from various sources available in the market but now they would get accurate data much faster and accessible anytime anywhere.

"This initiative is going to change the market dynamics of the pharma industry," said J.S. Shinde, chairman, AIOCD Ltd. "Our authentic data would be vital for business planning and to face international competition."