The drugs control department of the National Capital Territory of Delhi has made search reports from the Registrar of Trade Marks compulsory before clearing any drug-manufacturing license under a particular brand name. The department's initiative is proving to be the most practical solution to counter the issue of counterfeit or look-alike drugs manufacturing in the state.

For the last two months, the department has been doing this successfully and a thorough scrutiny of each application has totally eliminated the chances of the state approving a look-alike brand.

Industry sources feel that the move, if taken up by other state drug control departments as well, can provide a practical solution to the counterfeiting of drug, a major problem faced by the drug industry today. The drug regulatory officials also echoed the same feeling and hoped that the final report of the Mashelkar Committee on Drug Regulatory System Reforms will come out with such an instruction.

Interestingly, the recent move by the Delhi Drugs Authority is not a new idea as the Supreme Court had, two years ago, suggested it as a solution to check the presence of look-alike drugs. The SC had while delivering a verdict on Cadila Health Care Ltd v/s Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd (case 2372 / 2001) asked the central drug regulatory authorities to consider making it mandatory for the applicant to submit an official search report from the Trade Mark Office pertaining to the trademark in question. "Keeping in view the provisions of Section 17 B of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, which inter alia indicates that an imitation or resemblance of another drug in a manner likely to deceive being regarded as spurious drug it is but proper that before granting permission to manufacture a drug under a brand name the authority under the Act is satisfied that there will be no confusion or deception in the market," the SC had observed.

The Apex Court had also pointed out that "While medicinal products are involved, the test to be applied for adjudging the violation of trade mark law may not be on par with the cases involving non-medicinal products. A stricter approach should be adopted while applying the test to judge the possibility of confusion of one medicinal product may only cause economic loss to the plaintiff, confusion between the two medicinal products may have disastrous effects on health and in some cases life itself. Stringent measures should be adopted specially where medicines are the medicines of last resort as any confusion in such medicines may be fatal or could have disastrous effects. The confusion as to the identity of the product itself could have dire effects on the public health".

However, none of the state drugs control administrations, except the recent move made by the Delhi Drugs Control Authority, is known to have applied their minds in this direction.