Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI)

Programs

Low Cost Standard Therapeutics (LOCOST)

last updated Sep 27, 2011

Overview

Implementing organization: 
LOCOST
Legal Status: 
Private (not-for-profit)
Year Launched: 
1983
Stage: 
Existing/expansion stage
Income Level of Target Population: 
Bottom 20%, 20-60% (lower to lower-middle)

Funding

Primary Source of Funding: 
Revenue (e.g., interest on loans)

Technology

Technology Used: 
Other

Scale

Personnel Employed: 
10-49
Number of Facilities Operated/Networked: 
1
Summary: 

LOCOST (Low Cost Standard Therapeutics) makes essential medicines for those working with urban and rural poor in India and was started as a response to the difficulty faced by those working in remote areas to access good quality medicines at affordable prices.

Key program components: 

LOCOST is an innovative experiment to show that good quality medicines can be made and marketed at viable, low prices.The major concerns addressed by LOCOST are advocating for the correct use of medicines and education of end-users and prescribes.

LOCOST realizes that mere production of essential medicines is not enough. It is necessary to educate the prescriber as well as the user. Its education cell focuses on issues related to education and training for rational use of medicines.

LOCOST produces a Gujarati monthly, Apnu Swasthya, for the general public. It also produces other publications for the general public, the latest being the Gujarati version of the famous classic, Where there is No Doctor; and A Lay Person's Guide to Medicine, a guide on the use and political economy of medicines.

The Major components and Strengths of LOCOST are:

  • Generic, essential drugs

  • Quality consciousness

  • No bribes, no underhand dealings

  • No shortcuts in production

  • Social accountability

  • Education and advocacy of rational therapy and a people-oriented drug policy

Program history: 

LOCOST, founded in 1983, has been serving the poor by making only rational, essential, quality drugs at the lowest possible prices. The company makes more than 60 essential medicines in 80 formulations (liquids, capsules, tablets) and by virtue of having its own factory has tried to demystify production in a small way

LOCOST is also active in pharmaceutical policy advocacy at regional and national levels. Their partnership, as respondents, in an ongoing case in the Supreme Court has resulted in the elimination of several categories of harmful and irrational drugs.

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