Original Research Article Journal of Management Research and Analysis, July-September,2016;3(3):101-109 101 Perceived Quality of Medical Practitioners towards generic medicine: an Exploratory Investigation Hiren J. Patel 1 , Rajdev Paras 2 1 Associate Professor, 2 Research Scholar, VM Patel Institute of Management, FMS, Ganpat University, Gujarat *Corresponding Author: Email: facultyhiren@gmail.com Abstract Purpose: The Current study aimed to exploratory investigation about knowledge, attitude and priority of medical practitioner towards generic medicines in Vadodara Methodology: The author analyzed data collected from 73 respondents and used exploratory factor analysis to extract the factors. Exploratory research design is used with convenience sampling for data collection Findings: Various variables related to knowledge, attitude, priority and patient’s financial condition were selected for exploratory factor analysis. The results indicate that total 4 factors have been extracted from the listed variables i.e. attitude, patient’s economical condition, perceived knowledge, legal aspect. Research Limitation and implication: The study is limited because it did not include survey and respondents from other cities of the state. The results are applicable to this segment only, the results depicts that perceived quality of medical practitioners towards generic medicine is negative. Originality/value: There is limited research to examine medical practitioners perception, knowledge, attitude and perception towards generic medicine, perceived quality of medical practitioners towards generic medicines has not been examined. Keywords: Medical Practitioner, Knowledge, Attitude, Perceived Quality, Patient’s Economical Condition, Generic medicines, Vadodara. Access this article online Website: www.innovativepublication.com DOI: 10.5958/2394-2770.2016.00016.8 Introduction Healthcare scenario in India, though constantly improving, is not a in a good condition. The spending for healthcare is about 4.0% of GDP (data.worldbank.org) which is way less than brazil’s 9.5%, South Africa’s 9.0%, Russian federation 6.5% and china’s 5.0% (Lowest in BRICS). For that reason out of pocket expenditure is about 80.0%. Now prices of medicine constitute about 40-50% of total health expenditure. In order to decrease out of pocket expenditure and improve access to healthcare services writing generic medication prescription must be encouraged. Generic medicines have been available since many decades years and are routinely used to cure a wide range of acute and chronic diseases. In order to be approved for use, a generic medicine must be bioequivalent to the originator product, and must be same in terms of efficacy, safety and quality. Generic medicines might be differ from their equivalent branded medicine in terms of color, size, shape and excipient ingredients. New patented medicines, often replacing cheaper medicines on the basis of being more effective, also increase costs. Within this policy environment, generic pharmaceuticals play an important role as an alternative to originator medicines in encountering disease. Many of the developing countries have policies encouraging the use of generic medicines, alongside policies that encourage innovation and lead to the fast uptake and use of newer therapies. This study assessing the current situation by medical practitioner’s knowledge, attitude and approach towards generic medicine and patient’s financial condition that either affecting the prescription pattern of medical practitioner or not. The outcome of this study will be useful to get a clear view about medical practitioner’s perception towards quality of generic medicine. India is said to be Pharmacy of the world, more than about 70% of population doesn’t have access to affordable healthcare remains a hard fact which is the irony of nation. Generic medication prescription can play a crucial role to change the game. The hurdles from practitioner’s point of view in this matter are identified in this study. Which can be further be crossed by effective politics and necessary actions. Literature review Knowledge: A study conducted in the USA in 2005 for the physician’s perception (Barrett 2005), showed that 78% of physicians are supporting generic medicines in most cases; and 17% are willing to prescribe generic medicines in all cases when they are available. Only 5%