By appointing a high level committee under the chairmanship of Dr R A Mashelkar, Director General of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, to suggest ways and means for effectively controlling spurious drugs manufacturing, the government has taken one more step to tackle this growing menace. The committee is expected to have representatives from ministries of law, health and chemicals and fertilizers. Members from IDMA, OPPI, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, All India Small Scale Drug Manufacturers' Association, Indian Pharmaceutical Association, AIOCD and consumer organisations will also be included in this committee. The constitution of the committee looks quite meaningful and impressive. The need for a comprehensive and nationwide action plan to check spurious drug manufacturing and distribution was felt for long but no serious action has ever been initiated by the Central or state governments so far. Spurious drug manufacturing and distribution is a well-organised and countrywide criminal operation today supported by even politicians in some states. It is very clear that no one state government or a Central ministry can effectively bring an end to this problem. The decision to include all related Central ministries, industry and trade bodies and consumer organisations in the proposed committee, therefore, should throw up some effective solution.
A parallel action, required from the pharmaceutical industry to support a national initiative like this, is to adopt higher standards in packaging. Practice of using poor quality packaging materials is widely prevalent even amongst medium, large and multinational companies in India for saving on costs. What these companies are not realising here is the volume of business they are losing because of poor quality packing. Over the years, counterfeiters have started investing in sophisticated machineries and better packaging materials making it difficult to distinguish between original and the fake products. Pharma companies are losing business to the tune of Rs 250 crore every year on account of fake products. A few large pharma companies have been using holograms for some time to protect their products and that is working to some extent. More and more companies should start using holograms and other safety options even if that may lead to marginal increase in costs. Disallowance of higher packaging costs while fixing prices of controlled drugs is often cited as the main reason for companies for not using better packaging materials and standards. NPPA's recent stand that additional cost involved in high security and special packaging methods of pharmaceuticals will be considered on a case to case basis while fixing prices is laudable.