Mumbai|HL
There will be a marketing code mandatory for pharmaceutical companies to control unethical practices, which will benefit the industry as said by senor ministry .
“The code will be mandatory, and will be for the growth and development of industry”, Sudhansh Pant joint secretary department of pharmaceuticals said at the annual general meeting of Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) here on Friday.
Concerned with unethical marketing practices and illegal promotions, the government had last year announced its intentions to announce a code which will be mandatory on the industry. At present, the code is voluntary, with certain companies having indulged in unethical practices like offering freebies, gifts, and exotic trips to doctors and healthcare professionals.
Pant also said that a dedicated venture capital fund with a corpus of Rs 500 crore will be floated to encourage innovation in the industry.
Speaking at the AGM later, Meenakshi Lekhi MP and Supreme Court lawyer, welcomed the industry’s initiative in setting up 50 healthcare centres across the country. She urged the industry to work in the area of organ donation, adding “harvesting organs is a fine cause”.
Several initiatives have just remained on paper and are not implemented, Lekhi added, leading to the sad state of healthcare in the country.
Earlier Shailesh Ayyangar President OPPI and MD India and VP South Asia, Sanofi said, “We have yet to fix healthcare financing issues, so that the disease burden doesn’t impoverish our nation. More than ever, the need of the hour is for all stakeholders to come together to find innovative solutions, and keep our nation healthy”.
Later a study ‘Development of Health Index of Indian states’ by Indian Institute of Management- Ahmedabad was also released at the event. The study shows Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu amongst the best performers while Assam, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh were lowest performers. States like Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and J&K performed well.
The states were then divided into three categories of high performers, middling performers and laggards for the purpose of policy directions.
“This report is a first step. With the existing data, we are able to make limited comments on the drivers of changes – which can provide preliminary pointers on where action is required. At this stage, we are able to look at the changes in the underlying variables that may have caused the movement. Moving forward we will be able to provide more granular recommendations”, said Prof Arvind Sahay, IIM (A).
Inputs:TNN
