Intensive Care Products

Intensive care products sell to a very different buyer from the regular clinic range. Your customer is the hospital pharmacy, the ICU in-charge and the purchase committee, not the chemist across the road. Orders are bigger, payments are slower, and once you are on a hospital's approved list you tend to stay there for a while.

The companies listed above offer critical-care ranges on PCD and, in some cases, make them under your brand through third party manufacturing. Use the state and city filter to find those already supplying in your region, then read the points below before you commit.

What actually moves in ICU and hospital supply

Most hospital critical-care purchase falls into a few groups:

• Injectable antibiotics: ceftriaxone, cefoperazone with sulbactam, piperacillin with tazobactam, meropenem, amikacin and similar. These drive the volume.
• IV PPIs and antiemetics: pantoprazole and esomeprazole injection, ondansetron. Used on almost every admitted patient.
• Supportive injectables: tranexamic acid, anticoagulants, vitamin injections, electrolytes, diuretics and steroids.
• Critical-care nutrition: amino acid infusions, enteral feed powders and high-protein formulas. Many feed products are sold under FSSAI rather than as drugs, so their labels and the way you promote them are different.

Choose your range from what the hospitals in your area already buy. Ask the hospital pharmacist which brands are on the shelf and where supply breaks. A new company's meropenem gets in only when it offers something the current one does not: a better rate, reliable supply or better credit.

How private hospitals buy, and how tenders differ

A mid-sized private hospital usually has a purchase committee: the medical superintendent, one or two senior consultants, the pharmacy head and someone from accounts. A new brand goes to the committee with a quotation, product literature and sometimes samples for the consultants. If it is approved, the hospital fixes a rate contract, often for six months or a year, and orders against it as needed. Your work after that is to keep stock available and keep the consultants writing your brand on the treatment chart.

Government hospitals buy through tenders, increasingly on GeM and through state medical services corporations. Tenders ask for things a small franchise partner rarely has: manufacturer turnover, specific GMP certificates, market standing certificates and lowest-rate bidding. Most partners do better with private hospitals and nursing homes first, and approach tenders later along with the manufacturer.

Credit, storage and terms to settle first

Private hospitals commonly pay in 45 to 90 days, sometimes later. Your money stays in the market far longer than in clinic-led business. So before choosing a company for intensive care products, ask what credit it gives you, because you will be giving credit to the hospital. A company that wants full advance while your hospital pays in 90 days will squeeze your working capital.

Storage is simpler than most people fear. Dry powder injections and IV PPIs generally need normal storage below the temperature printed on the label, away from light. Cold chain at 2 to 8 °C applies only to products that need it, such as insulin and certain biological products. Read the label of each product. If you take on a cold chain item, you need a proper refrigerator with a temperature log and insulated boxes for delivery.

Also confirm batch-wise COA (hospitals ask for it), minimum remaining shelf life at dispatch (hospitals reject short-expiry stock), dispatch time, and whether the company provides the literature and price list a purchase committee expects.

Post your hospital supply requirement

Fill the form on this page with the products you need, the hospitals or nursing homes you supply or plan to approach, your district, expected monthly volume, and whether you want PCD or your own brand from a third party plant. The form is free and your number stays private. Only companies dealing in intensive care products for your area receive it, and they call you back.

Related pages: Generic Medicine Franchise Companies and Allopathic PCD Pharma Franchise Opportunity. Molecules most listed here: Ceftriaxone, Sulbactam, Tazobactam.