The Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives' Associations of India (FMRAI) is planning to meet the Union minister of health, Ghulam Nabi Azad, soon to pursue its long pending demands on exempting excise duty from the maximum retail price (MRP) of essential medicines, rational pricing of drugs, implementation of code of marketing ethics and revival of pharma Public Sector Undertakings.

The Federation, expected to meet the minister in October, will demand that the excise duty for essential medicines should be removed in such a way that the difference in price should be reflected in the MRP.

The demand, which the Federation raised long before has not been considered by the government though the excise duty of drugs across the board has been reduced from 16 per cent to eight per cent. However, the cut in duty has not benefited the patient community, as the MRP of the medicines continues to remain the same, said Amitabh Guha, joint general secretary, FMRAI.

"The reduction in excise duty has not made any benefit to either the government or the patients. The action, in fact, was only beneficial to the industry," says Guha. "We will be asking the government to consider our demand and to make the essential medicines available at ex-factory cost for the public," he added.

Further, the Federation will also seek reduction in prices of all essential medicines and strict price control and implementation of code of marketing ethics for the pharmaceutical industry, in the meeting. The revival of all medicine and vaccine manufacturing PSU units will be another major demand.

Even as the government has announced project to introduce an ethics code for marketing for the industry and various measures for revival of the PSUs, no serious steps have been taken on these issues, points out Guha. While the revival of three vaccine manufacturing units was announced by the new government, the no official order related to this has been issued by the ministry yet.

With the new government, the FMRAI is redrafting its demands on patient benefits and the needs of the medical representatives in the country. A working committee meeting of the federation will be called in November to discuss the course of action to be followed in future for its demands.

The FMRAI has also been asking the government to withdraw all irrational and harmful medicines, enforce Drugs & Cosmetics Act effectively and to withdraw the latest amendment bill on Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, in order to make the medicines affordable to the Indian patients.