Pint of Medicine

A small comment or a 5 X 5 cm news can make so much impact on the world can be seen few times in a century but rarely are such news good. It is a moment in history that such a rare news is seen during our lifetime which perhaps rivals the sighting of a once-a-century meteor. Predictably, I was unaware of the magnitude of the news until I was hit smack in the face. The medium was unlikely commercial artist friend of mine. It was just a casual visit to a person who had pledged his life to working only for a pharmaceutical sector. I never knew the reason but the determination was fierce. So imagine my surprise to see him drawing something for what looked like a liquor brand. I could not resist the jibe, ‘So you finally sold out your pledge to for money’. He looked up and gave me the startling answer ‘No, I still am serving the pharma sector except that this is a new entrant so I am taking up the challenge for its smooth entry’.

Seeing my puzzled expression, he slid a the day’s newspaper folded at the news of a research report on Beer being medicinal. ‘So?’ I asked in innocent ignorance. ‘This bottle is to be placed on the shelf of a chemist and not a wine shop’ he clarified. ‘The packaging has to appeal to the patient and no longer to the tippler’ he explained. To prove his point he took out one bottle containing respiratory ailment syrup and an equivalent size bottle. I must admit, each bottle evoked a different feeling. The point was driven home and felt proud that my friend was approaching the issue so scientifically with such a forensic angle. If I were the dean of any university, I would have awarded him a doctorate immediately.

‘Have you seen fancy packaging for prescription drugs? When the Doctor jots you a prescription, you hand over the scribbled paper to the chemist who ducks and brings up your strip of tablets or bottle and puts it on the shelf in front of you. If it weren’t for your sickness making you uneasy, you would have applauded enthusiastically at the magic he performed by exchanging a scribbled paper for a prescription drug.’ Coming from an industry of accounting where one predominant is pessimism, I asked how the patients would get a Doctor’s prescription for that ‘new tonic’. This sent my friend into peals of laughter. ‘Translated, you never even look at the package but grab it and head home to hurry and take the first dose so why should the companies spend money on design and packaging?’ I understood, ‘Okay so, beer is an over-the-counter or OTC drug.’ ‘The new term is SELF-MEDICATION and not OTC’ he lectured me. ‘Even my dentist told me that beer makes the teeth healthy by washing away all the oils and sticky stuff of the food that attaches to the enamel’ he gave his parting shot to promote beer.

As I walked home I saw some of the current chemist shops and wondered how they would look once they started selling beer as an OTC drug. Will the pharmacy or the chemist as commonly referred advertise the availability of the OTC tonic called beer or will the beer shops sport the red cross sign or will they innovate and have a cross made out of beer bottles to have a maximum impact? It all boggled my mind. I felt a bit giddy wondering whether the beer companies would turn pharma or would the pharma companies now manufacture ‘drug quality’ beer? To clear my head I went to a restaurant and ordered beer. I flipped though the daily paper and saw an ad of Pharmaceutical All India (PAI) companies annual seminar. The main bold line caught my attention as it read, ‘PAI WECOMES NEW 460 BEER COMPANIES INTO ITS PHARMA FAMILY. With the entrance fee and annual fee being sizeable, the organization may now be rolling in money to even influence a study that showed drinking whiskey is good for health! I thought.

Even the ambulances may have to undergo a make-over to advertise what people should consume to lead a healthy life. While the encouraged may be well advised the maximum dosage, we all have serious doubts if most of the patients would remain capable of understanding it after the first few doses. Such ordinary people who use supplementary health tonics can also include ambulance drivers is what I realized gradually and was scared to even imagine the impact of an ambulance driver driving at speed with the vehicle wailing. I doubt very much whether the duty of the designated trip would be executed to its fullest as the driver would be on his own private trip.

Just then a partner of a famous large firm of accounting requested my immediate presence in his office. We had done work in the past but today it seemed ‘eons’ ago. ‘What giv…’ he did not let me finish my question when he started rattling off his problem. ‘Without drinking a stuff of what this client makes, I am dizzy’ he said throwing a hardcopy of a spreadsheet in my lap. After I concluded the ten pages of study, I went into raptures of laughter. My learned friend calculated the strategy of ‘tax holiday hopping’ every three years in declared areas of tax holiday by shifting the client’s factory lock, stock a barrel but at the end of ten years, the cost of dismantling and assembly wiped out the cost savings thus ruining my friend’s seven day effort and chance to bill a client. As I wiped the last tears of laughter, I asked, ‘What does your client produce?’ ‘Beer’ was my friend’s flat answer. ‘Didn’t you read the papers declaring beer to contain medicinal properties?’ I asked. ‘So?’ he demanded. ‘The tax provisions are more favourable for pharma than liquor in this country’ I blurted my eureka moment. My friend just stared. ‘I have already considered that’ Now I felt sheepish at the deflation of my moment of glory. I kept staring at the sheets as if they would suddenly come alive and stand up to whisper a solution in my ear. After some time, they did! I was carrying a dummy packing from my friend’s office which was a reject. The important difference is now the beer pack had a detailed list of ingredients being medicine category. Here is where the idea germinated. ‘If you could just TRANSLATE the ingredients to their hindi names, you could register this as an ayurvedic medicine which has a much lower tax rate than allopathic medicine’ I fired my shot of creativity and paused for an applause. My friend lapped it up and so did the client and months later, the papers reported it as an exploited loophole as others followed suit and then the Government was mulling over how to plug the loophole. We would then all wait and spot another one and the cat and mouse game would continue forever ……