The Pharmaceutical Advisory Forum, an official platform of all the stakeholders and consumers in the pharmaceutical sector under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, will be reconstituted soon with inclusion of more members from the pharma associations and consumer organisations.

As per a new announcement from the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), the forum will be reconstituted by including two members from each of the pharma industry associations like IDMA, BDMA, OPPI, IPA, CIPI, FICCI, FOPE, SPIC, ASSOCHAM and CII.

Earlier, there were only one member from each of the associations, and the lack of strength in numbers led the domestic drug industry to condemn the structure of the Forum at the time of its formation. The forum was constituted on July 2004, with more than 160 members, as a platform of all the stakeholders related to the sector to make good quality essential pharmaceuticals of mass consumption available at reasonable prices.

“We welcome the decision to increase the number of industry members in the forum,” said N R Munjal, president, Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA). However, he added that the reconstitution will change the organisational structure of the forum by adding more healthcare related non governmental organisations (NGOs) and reducing the number of members from the trade sector, rather than any major changes which would have impact on the industry.

The reconstituted forum will have a maximum of 30 members from various NGOs and consumer organisations, which are to be nominated by the DoP. This is a fresh inclusion in documents, when compared to the earlier structure. The new Forum has also retained the earlier inclusion of two representatives of the consumers from each State and Union Territory with options left to the government to increase the number suitably as and when required.

However, the representation from the pharma traders are to be restricted to 10 members in the Forum while it was one representative of Chemist Associations from each States and Union Territories earlier. Besides, the official members including Ministers of Health from all the states, the chairman of National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), Secretary of DoP, Drugs Controller General of India and officials from related departments will be present in the new Forum, which will be headed by the Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers.

The decision to reconstitute the forum was announced in June 2009. As per the official sources, the Forum has held four meetings so far from the time of its inception, twice in 2006 and once each in 2007 and 2008 in Delhi. The forum meetings played a vital role in policy discussions related to pharmaceutical price regulations, price regulation of imported patented products, promotion of affordable medicines through generic drug stores, etc.