Clinical doctors have, traditionally, dictated the demand and supply of drugs to patients in hospitals. With the growing awareness of the public, and the efforts of the government at regulating the pharmaceutical sector through its emphasis on generic drugs, open tendering and fair competition, hospitals have also been forced to revisit their supply chain models for drugs. This article compares the experience of a tertiary care teaching and research hospital in the procurement of generic medicines through an open tender as against the earlier practice of procurement of medicines through a limited tender with regard to identified performance indicators through a retrospective record analysis. Information thus gathered has been analyzed through the SPSS software, using the chi square test of significance to test the null hypothesis, followed by the TOWS matrix, in order to identify the optimum mechanism of drug procurement throughevidence - based administrative practices.

 

Key-words: generic medicines, open tender, limited tender