A family member paid full price for a medicine for months. The same molecule had a Jan Aushadhi generic version that cost a fraction of it. Nobody told them. Nobody told us.

That’s the whole reason this exists.

The thing most people don’t know

India runs a scheme called Jan Aushadhi. It sells generic medicines, the same active molecule as the branded version, at a much lower price. It’s real, it’s official, and it’s been there for years.

Generic does not mean weaker. It means the patent expired, so anyone can make the molecule, so the price drops. The branded box and the generic box can hold the same thing. One just costs a lot more because of the name on it.

For a lot of families, that price gap is the difference between taking a medicine and skipping it.

The catch

The catalogue is public. That part is solved. The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to use when you actually need it.

It’s a long list of around 2,400 products. On a phone, in a pharmacy, with a doctor’s prescription in your other hand, you cannot realistically dig through it. The information exists but it doesn’t reach the person standing at the counter.

There’s also a quiet trap in the data. Some items show a price of zero. That does not mean free. It means the medicine is still being processed and isn’t stocked yet. Show that as ₹0 and you’ve just lied to someone about their medicine. That nuance matters more than any feature.

What I’m building

A fast, phone-first way to search that catalogue. You type a name, you see results, instantly. That’s the core, and it has to be good before anything else gets added.

A few things on top of that:

  • A clear view of what changed in the latest update: what’s newly available, and when
  • An option to get an email when the catalogue updates, so you’re not checking by hand
  • Later, a way to take your branded medicine and find its generic equivalent directly

I’m not going to walk through how it’s built here. This post is about why. The how can wait for its own day.

The part I refuse to get wrong

This is medicine, so the honest disclaimers aren’t fine print. They’re the point.

  • It is not medical advice. Generic equivalence is by molecule only. Always check with a doctor or pharmacist before switching, and confirm the dose and the form.
  • It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the government. The data comes from the public Jan Aushadhi portal, and it’s credited as such.

A tool like this can save someone money. It can also do harm if it makes someone confident about a switch they shouldn’t make alone. So it points people toward the cheaper option and toward a professional, never around one.

Why it stays free

The honest motivation is small and personal: I wanted my own people to stop overpaying for the exact same thing.

Once you build that for your family, there’s no reason to keep it to your family. It’s designed to run at almost no cost, so it can stay free for whoever needs it. Health information that helps people pay less shouldn’t sit behind a price of its own.

Next step

I have the project mapped and I’m building the search first. If you’ve ever watched someone you love pay too much for medicine, you already understand why this one isn’t really a side project.

I’ll write about how it’s built once it’s in people’s hands.