The drug was called Nebuflam-D . A fixed-dose combination of an expectorant, a low-dose steroid, and a novel mucolytic. It was supposed to be a blockbuster for chronic bronchitis. The clinical trials were solid. The pricing was aggressive. The sales force was incentivized to the teeth.
Arjun picked up his phone and called the rep. “Rajesh, Dr. Iyengar—did she prescribe Nebuflam-D in week one?”
Outside, the city was asleep. But somewhere, a patient with chronic bronchitis was breathing shallowly, having bought only half a course of the expectorant, leaving the steroid untouched—because a chemist had whispered, “Don’t take this combo, beta. Too risky.”
He returned to his dashboard the next morning. The system had automatically generated a stock ageing report for Nebuflam-D. It showed that 34% of inventory at the stockist level was within 60 days of expiry. The algorithm flagged it as “moderate risk.” But what the algorithm didn’t say was that Suresh was planning to return those batches next week, triggering a cascade of negative entries that would nuke the zone’s incentive payouts for the quarter. Fdc Sales Mis
He pulled up the prescription trend for Dr. Meera Iyengar, a pulmonologist in the city’s top lung hospital. Her prescription numbers for Nebuflam-D had gone from zero to forty in the first week—after his star rep had visited her thrice—and then dropped to two in the third week. But the MIS showed zero patient redemptions from her prescriptions. That meant either patients weren’t buying it, or the prescriptions were never written.
Arjun clicked into the MIS module that tracked prescription audits . The software was expensive, licensed from a US vendor, and meticulously built. It aggregated data from 1,200 chemists across his zone. Every time a bill was generated for Nebuflam-D, the system recorded it. Every time a doctor’s prescription was scanned at a pharmacy loyalty program, the system knew.
He understood then what FDC sales MIS really was. Not a tool. Not a system. A mirror. And what it reflected was not the market, but the fear inside the people who sold drugs: fear of failure, fear of being fired, fear of a flat green line. The drug was called Nebuflam-D
“Arjun bhai, your Nebuflam-D is moving slow because the retailers are scared. Two months ago, the state drug controller banned another FDC—same steroid, different company. The wholesalers are still stuck with thirty lakhs of expired stock. So now, every time a retailer sees ‘low-dose steroid’ on a combo, they think: next ban . They order just one strip at a time. And the patient? If the doctor writes a combo, the patient asks the chemist, ‘Can I take just the expectorant alone?’ Then they buy half a course.”
A pattern emerged.
Or so they believed.
That night, Arjun drove to the warehouse district to meet a stockist named Suresh. Suresh sat in a grease-stained office surrounded by cartons of antihypertensives and antacids. He was frank.
Arjun stared at the glowing screen in his cubicle at 9:47 PM. The office was empty except for the janitor, who hummed an old Hindi film tune while mopping the corridor. On Arjun’s monitor, a cascade of numbers scrolled silently: units sold, doctor prescriptions, stockist balances, tertiary sales, secondary sales, primary sales.