Dr. Reddy's announces new initiative to boost patient-centric approach
Innovative packaging and assessment mechanism put in place
Indian pharmaceutical giant Dr. Reddy’s laboratories on Thursday announced a patient-centric initiative to address unmet needs of patients. This initiative, called Purple Health, would involve four segments: awareness (enhanced awareness of diagnosis), access (increased access to medication), adherence (adherence to therapy) and experience (simplified medication experience) therapy for patients.
At the first step, Dr. Reddy’s has introduced a new range of packaging for its top 25 best-selling brands. These would will be rolled-out in a phased manner over the next six months.
“The cost of developing new packages is between Rs 12-15 crore for the 25 brands for this year,” says M.V. Ramana, Dr. Reddy’s, executive vice president and head branded markets (India and emerging countries).
As part of the repackaging, blister packs would have extra space for the brand name which ensures easy identification at the pharmacy, a tab at the bottom with the expiry date clearly mentioned and a pictorial representation of the time of the day the medicine needs to be taken; the patient just has to tick the right box and doesn’t need to refer to the prescription time and again.
In case of bottles, the measuring cup is now easy to read and clean, and the neck of the bottle has been modified to ensure minimal spillage.
This initiative is in line with the announcement of a patient-centric approach across the organisation, which Dr. Reddy’s made a year ago. The company had changed their visual identity and brand to ‘Good Health Can’t Wait’ from ‘Life, Research, Hope’ in 2015.
The company has also put in place a structured mechanism to assess its brand offerings, as part of the Purple Health initiative. These assessments were made by a renowned external jury, which includes oncologist Dr. Purvish M. Parikh. Currently, five of Dr. Reddy’s 250 brands – catering to disease areas ranging from diarrhea to oncology -- have been certified as ‘Purple Star’ brands. The certification is valid for only two years, after which the brands will be freshly assessed.
