Indian Govt. Bans 344 Drugs, Including Vicks Action 500 Extra, Corex & Sumo. Know The Name Of Other Drugs
One of India’s most popular medicines for cough and cold, Vicks Action 500 Extra, will not be available in chemist shops any more after the government banned fixed dose combination drugs.
Apart from Vicks, India has banned the manufacture and sale of more than 300 combination medicines, including two widely used cough syrups, being sold without government approval.The move is aimed at curbing the misuse of such medicines in India, where nearly half the drugs sold in 2014 were so called “fixed dose combinations.”
On Monday, drug majors Pfizer and Abbott stopped sale of their popular cough syrups Corex and Phensedyl respectively, after the government banned 344 fixed dose combinations (FDCs) drugs.The two companies, however, said they are exploring “all options” to counter the impact of ban.
What are combination drugs
Combination drugs are used worldwide to improve patients’ compliance, as it is easier to get patients to take one drug rather than several. But inconsistent enforcement of drug laws in India has led to the proliferation of hundreds of such medicines entering the market based on approval from regulators of individual states, rather than the central government.
In 2014, India set up a committee to review more than 6,000 combinations that had entered the market based only on state regulators’ approval. Policymakers gave pharmaceutical companies a chance to retroactively prove the safety and efficacy of these drugs by submitting data on their drugs.
The committee was tasked with classifying the drugs into rational, irrational, and those that need further studies, said KL Sharma, a joint secretary at the health ministry.Now based on responses (and) assessment of products, more than 300 drugs have been prohibited,” he told Reuters.
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