UNO-FRESH in Chennai

Send the quantity you need against the pack shown above and we come back with the rate, the minimum order quantity and a lead time. Rates are quoted ex-Chandigarh, freight extra at actuals, GST as applicable to the product category, payment in advance. Expiry and breakage claims are not entertained, which is why the shelf life on the batch you are offered is worth asking about when you order rather than afterwards.

The three routes, and which one you want

• Under your own brand. Any item here can be made as third party manufacturing — you keep the brand, the trademark and the market, and production, packing and batch documentation are handled here. This is the route for a marketing company that wants equity in a name of its own rather than in somebody else's.
• On franchise. Appointments are district-wise, so two associates are never put into the same market. See PCD pharma franchise. This is the route for somebody building a territory: the promotional work you do in a chamber stays yours.
• On distribution. Straight supply against a valid drug licence, with no exclusivity and no promotional commitment either way. The simplest of the three, and the right one for a wholesaler filling a gap on a sheet they already have.

What you need either way

Two documents decide whether an order can be invoiced at all, and they are the same two on all three routes: a valid drug licence in the name of the firm being invoiced — commonly Form 20B and 21B for a wholesaler — and GST registration in that same firm's name. The name on the licence and the name on the invoice have to match; an order held at dispatch is almost always held because they did not.

A third party manufacturing order needs one more: the trademark registration, or the application number, for any brand name you intend to print. That is needed before artwork rather than before dispatch, which gives it a longer runway and makes it easier to forget. Cartons, foils, labels and inserts are produced against artwork you approve before a batch is scheduled, not after it.

If you are applying for a licence now, that is a normal place to be starting from. The quotation can be worked out in the meantime — only the dispatch waits on the paperwork.

How the rate is built

Four terms carry every franchise conversation in this industry, and mixing them up is how two quotations get compared that were never comparable:

• MRP — the maximum retail price printed on the pack. A retailer may sell below it and may not sell above it.
• PTR — price to retailer: what the chemist pays the stockist.
• PTS — price to stockist: what the stockist pays the company or the franchise associate.
• Net rate — what an associate pays us. The gap between that and PTS is the associate's margin, before GST and before freight.

Those last four words matter more than anything else on this list. Two offers quoting the same PTS are not the same offer if one is ex-factory with freight at actuals and the other is landed at your godown. Before comparing anybody's rate with anybody else's, put both on the same basis: per tablet, bottle or tube rather than per box, since pack sizes differ; against the printed MRP, since the margins are built from it; and ex-factory rather than landed, since freight is a real number and a quotation that has absorbed it has also hidden it. The second thing worth checking is what quantity a rate assumes — a number for a full run and a number for a trial batch are both honest and they are not the same offer.

Monopoly rights, and what the word should mean

Franchise appointments are granted by district rather than by state or by city, and they cover the range rather than a single product. Both of those are deliberate. A monopoly on one line is not a territory — an associate who holds one finds the rest of the segment arriving in their market through somebody else. And the practical test of a monopoly is simple: if a company cannot tell you who else holds your district, it is not granting one.

Building a prescriber relationship takes months of visits. An associate who finds a second supplier's representative in the same waiting room has lost those months, which is the whole reason the appointment is written the way it is.

How a first order actually goes

It is shorter than most people expect, and the order of the steps matters because each one depends on the last:

1. You send the list and the quantity. Product, pack, and how many. On a third party manufacturing enquiry, say whether you want the pack shown here or something else — it changes the tooling and therefore the rate.
2. We send the rate, the minimum order quantity and a lead time. All three together, because a rate without a minimum is not an offer you can act on.
3. Licence and GST are verified. Both in the name of the firm to be invoiced. This is where a first order stalls if the names do not match.
4. Artwork, if it is your brand. Cartons, foils and labels go to proof and you approve them. Nothing is scheduled until you do.
5. Payment, then dispatch. Payment in advance, goods ex-Chandigarh by surface, batch documentation travelling with the consignment.

Marketing company or manufacturer — why it matters to you

UNOS Biotech is a pharma marketing company. Products are manufactured at licensed third-party units and marketed under the UNOS Biotech name, or under yours. That is the normal structure for most of the PCD and franchise market in this country, and it is worth understanding rather than guessing at, because it tells you what questions are reasonable.

Reasonable: ask for the composition, the pack, the printed MRP, the batch documentation that travels with the goods, and the shelf life on what you are being offered. Not reasonable, and a warning sign when a supplier answers it anyway: asking a marketing company for a plant certification it does not hold. A company that will claim one it has not got will also claim a lead time it cannot meet.

Dispatch and documentation

Goods move by surface transport from Chandigarh unless something else is agreed, and the packing is specified for that journey rather than for an ideal one. Every consignment travels with its batch documentation. Composition, pack size and printed MRP are exactly as shown on this page — those are the details on the pack itself.

What this company does and does not claim

UNOS BIOTECH PVT. LTD. is an ISO 9001:2015 certified company. That is a quality management system standard, and it is the only certification claimed anywhere on this site. No plant certification, foreign regulatory approval or government endorsement is claimed, because none is held.

The restraint is deliberate and it protects everybody downstream. A distributor who repeats a certification their supplier invented is the one standing in front of the buyer when it gets checked. For anything clinical, what a product contains is stated on the pack, and how it should be used is a matter for a registered medical practitioner and the pack insert — not for a supplier's catalogue page.

Call 8264472179 with the quantity, your district and which of the three routes you are asking about, and the reply will be specific to that.