In a bid to put further pressure on the industry to stop manufacturing and selling the controversial fixed dose combinations, Union health minister Dr Ambumani Ramadoss has asked his department officials to publicize the names of the 294 FDCs through the website and newspaper advertisements.
Reiterating the resolve to weed out the unapproved FDCs from the market, the minister disclosed that he had asked the DCGI to ban the controversial combination drugs and said his ministry was committed to ensure `quality' aspect of drugs.
"Creation of the Central Drug Authority of India to streamline the process of manufacturing licensing is the only solution to it. Now if some drug is banned in Delhi, one can get the license from a neighbouring place like Ghaziabad or Gurgaon and get the same marketed back in Delhi,'' he told reporters after releasing the Indian Pharmacopoeia 2007 near here on Tuesday.
He said the first phase of the drive was to list the FDCs which were not approved by Delhi. Second phase would to be to follow up the case and create awareness about the said products. In the third phase, the agencies like Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission and central laboratories would be used to ensure the quality of drugs.
He said the Centre had already spent upto Rs 400 crore on the capacity building of labs and regulatory agencies across the country and under the CDAI, more money would be spent on ensuring quality.
The minister said there was a `multi-pronged' attack launched by the government against the spurious and substandard drugs and a massive effort to collect upto 5 lakh samples was on. About Rs 5 crore was spent on the drive to ascertain the quantity of substandard and spurious drugs once and for ever, in the backdrop of `baseless' media reports exaggerating the spurious drugs market. He also urged the industry to cooperate by authenticating their genuine drugs.