Even as the Union Health Ministry’s draft proposal for amendment of D&C Rules 1945 is waiting for suggestions from all stakeholders, mixed reactions to the draft are coming from pharmacist and non-pharmacist traders. While the traders with pharmacy background support the move of the government, the non-pharmacist traders are opposing it.
R. Sreenivasan, the pharmaceutical supply chain analyst and a distributor in Chennai, who has pharmacy education background, while supporting the government’s proposal, has commented that if the government desires to make only registered pharmacists competent persons for wholesale licences, it should bring a legislation to that effect in the normal way. At the same time, the existing licence holders should be allowed to continue their business dealings.
He said the government’s move to regulate pharmaceutical supply chain is inevitable and a necessity when everyone in the link is handling medicines. A pharmacist is a competent person to deal in medicines. So, there can be legislation to make it mandatory for a qualified person for grant of drug licences for wholesale in future. Appropriate storage and supplies of medicines to licensed dealers are already part of D&C Rules and the license holders are aware of the same and adhering to those rules.
Dr. S.B. Rijwani from Indore in Madhya Pradesh, who is the vice-president of Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) with high educational background in pharmacy, has opined that wholesale and retail licences for drugs should be given only to registered pharmacists.
Hailing the government’s decision to protect the existing wholesalers by allowing to continue their business dealings, the former vice-president of IPA, Dr. Roop Narayan Gupta from Ranchi in Chhattisgarh, said new licences should be given only to registered pharmacists. He said mandating registered pharmacists in wholesale business will ensure proper handling, storage, preservation and quality assurance of all medicines and medical devices during wholesale and distribution levels.
Whereas, opposite comments have come from marketers side. A. Kannan, chairman of the Consortium of Indian Pharmaceutical Marketers and Manufacturers Association (CIPMMA), whose educational background is different from pharmacy, said CIPMMA is vehemently opposing the government’s plan to make registered pharmacists alone eligible for wholesale licences. He said service of a registered pharmacist is not required in a wholesaler’s store.
Vibha Sankar Singh, a post graduate in botany and has a background of wholesale medicine business of 40 years in UP, who is now the president of Uttar Pradesh Chemists and Distributors Federation (UP CDA), an affiliate of AICDF, said it is the government’s duty to protect the existing wholesale dealers. AICDF has wanted the government to desist from its move for amending the D&C Rules for the sake of pharmacists as it will cause non-availability of essential drugs in the market.
“We strongly oppose this move of the government because we are serving the nation since the medicine market came in existence and our business is a question of bread and butter for more than 1 crore wholesalers and their employees involved in the business. In fact the wholesalers are not involved in any kind of preparation, compounding against prescription, administering the drug to the patient, and they are not fixing the dosage also. Therefore there is no requirement of the presence of a pharmacist in a wholesale shop. We feel that under the pressure of educational mafias, who are running private pharmacy colleges in the country, and of the corporate who is willing to open their retail chain in India, the government has taken this decision against us.”, Vibha Sankar added.
Whereas, the Bihar Drugs Manufacturers Association (BDMA) in Patna has informed that they strongly support the government stand of making it mandatory that only registered pharmacists should get wholesale licences for medicine. Sanjiv Rai, president of BDMA, said he will send a letter to the union government in support of the government stand.