The 58th Indian Pharmaceutical Congress ended last Sunday after the routine exposition and conference. A major difference during this year's IPC was that there were two exhibitions happening at the same time and venue. The Indian Pharmaceutical Association helped CMP to start CPhI India show for the first time in the country during this IPC. CMP, the organizer of CPhI Worldwide, CPhI Japan and CPhI China have been looking forward to start the India chapter for some time. By associating with IPC for introducing CPhI India at the same time and venue, CMP got a fantastic launching pad. CPhI including its India chapter is more of an exposition for networking of companies and businessmen engaged in manufacturing and trading of APIs and intermediates. IPC, started several years ago more as an annual congregation of pharmacy professionals, has now turned into a commercial show for its own reasons. There were a large number of exhibitors of companies making pharmaceutical machineries, packaging materials, technologies, etc. at the IPC exhibition. Although IPCA comprises of 4 associations of pharmacy professionals in the country, organizing a three-day exhibition along with the annual conference was accepted as a necessity for raising funds for these associations for some years now. The fund raising campaign has turned into an open activity now. The fact is that most of the members of the four associations, barring a few in IPA, do not have much clout in the Indian pharmaceutical industry to easily collect funds.
The need for funds is thus making the organizers to somehow associate the top pharmaceutical company heads into the IPC. Heads of most of India's top pharmaceutical companies like Ranbaxy, Dr Redddy's, Cipla, Sun Pharma, Wockhardt, Lupin, Zydus, Torrent, Aurobindo and others are either not pharmacy professionals or do not want themselves to be identified as pharmacy professionals. They therefore, do not participate the annual Congress but agrees to be as patrons or donors for IPC. A major difference between the shows organized by industry associations and the professional bodies is this. It is in this background, the pharmacy professionals have to carry out their charter for the future. In the hunt for funds, pharmacists bodies should not lose track of their main objective of raising standards and respectability for this profession. In the pharmaceutical factories, the senior pharmacy professionals should have some voice in ensuring ethics and quality of the pharmaceutical products. They should not be mere handmaids of irresponsible managements. Quality in terms of ingredients and packaging materials is being compromised in several medium and small-scale pharmaceutical factories at the instance of managements. On the trade front, pharmacists have no status in thousands of retail medical stores spread across the country. Common man cannot see the existence of a community pharmacist there. Today what he sees at a retail pharmacy counter is a just a salesman promoting the costliest medicines of major companies as that gives the maximum commission for the owner. The organized retail pharmacy chain is a recent phenomenon. Most of these franchisees have just air-conditioned premises and are no better than the "banya" owned shops. The concept of community pharmacy is yet to make an impact in India and it remains as a good conference theme.