Saridon, Panderm among over 6,000 medicines face ban

The Centres decision on Wednesday to ban the manufacture sale and distribution of 328 Fixed Dose Combination FDC drugs has brought around 6000 prominent medicines under the radar including some very commonly used onesThe list of such drugs includes Piramals painkiller Saridon Macleods Pharmas Panderm Plus skin cream Alkem Laboratories antibacterial Taxim AZ and combination diabetes drug Gluconorm PG among othersHailing the governments step All India Drug Action Network AIDAN Convener Dr Gopal Dabade said the government has taken the right decision as the drugs banned by the government were indeed harmful and not prescribed in the textbooks of medicineThe FDC issue has gone through the legal process and the Supreme Court has given its verdict IDMA Indian Drug Manufacturers Association is a responsible body and has never advocated irrational FDCs but we do believe in the advantages of patient convenience and compliance that FDCs provideAs far as pharma loss of sale is concerned it might be somewhere around Rs 2000 crore IDMA Director Deepnath Roychowdhury statedThe Centre in March 2016 had prohibited the manufacture sale and distribution of 349 FDCs but this was contested by the affected manufacturers in high courts and the Supreme CourtComplying with the December 2017 Supreme Court judgment the Drugs Technical Advisory Board DTAB examined the matter and in its report to the Centre recommended prohibition of the FDCs saying there was no therapeutic justification for the ingredients contained in them and that these FDCs may involve risk to human beingsEarlier an expert committee appointed by the Centre too had made similar observationsConsidering the recommendations of DTAB and the expert committee the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare through a gazette notification prohibited the FDCsMost firms have already discontinued their FDCs or have little stock left with them It will take another 72 hours for the banned FDCs to move off the stores from the time the manufacturers tell their distributors and wholesalers or related channels to withdraw the medicines Dr Sujit Paul Managing Director StayHappi Pharmacy mentionedThe notification had earlier come in March 2017 In the meantime most of the companies have changed their formulation The loss will be faced by the marketers Almost all the companies will be affected Sanjeev Jain Director Akums Drugs and Pharmaceuticals addedCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in the headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever