Doctors’ Perceptions towards Domestic and MultinationalPharmaceutical Products:An Investigation from Developing Country

This exploratory study focuses on doctors’ perception towards domestic and multinational pharmaceuticalproducts. Doctors can heavily influence drug purchase decisions by performing the rolesof users (sometimes), influencer, gatekeepers and deciders, while patients perform the role of buyersand users. The difference in perception was measured in terms of products, brand image and pricing.Data were collected from a sample of 15 doctors (n=15) using a questionnaire comprised of 12 questionsmeasured in Likert scales. The study reveals that brand image is the most influential factor forprice of medicines and brand image is highly related to quality and the level of promotion for the underlyingproduct. Furthermore, doctors perceive multinational products to be different and better thandomestic products due to their stronger brand image. This study highlights that doctors’ preferencesare not fully unbiased and can be influenced by pharmaceutical companies. Due to its exploratorynature, findings might need to be validated in a further study with a larger sample.