The Union Health Ministry may seek the help of the Commerce Ministry to deal with the issue of redefining counterfeit drugs in a bid to safeguard the interests of the Indian pharmaceutical exporters. The issue is turning into a major controversy that may ultimately affect trade relations with other countries.

The commerce ministry will be involved to mount concerted efforts against the alleged attempt by some developed countries and big multinationals to brand Indian generic drugs as counterfeit by redrafting the definition as proposed by IMPCT. The suggestion to take the help of the Commerce ministry was mooted by SPIC in the recent meeting between the industry and the DCGI on the subject and was agreed upon.

The amendment to the definition as proposed by IMPACT would be fringing upon the general trade interests of the country, going beyond the spectrum of pharma in future. Besides, the issue also had implications on the existing patent laws in the country. Hence the Health ministry would like to have help from the Commerce ministry to deal it better and more effectively, it is learnt.

Besides, the issue had also caught the attention of those outside the pharma sector with political parties from the Left taking strong exception to the move and demanding intervention of the Prime Minister as they described it as a challenge to the Parliamentary democracy since the patent law had been passed by the House and the Government had promised to safeguard the interests of Indian products.

SPIC vice-chairman Lalit Kumar Jain, at the meeting, claimed that propaganda was being launched by various countries and especially big MNCs to show that that the products from India are counterfeit or sub-standard in quality. "It is important and necessary that such propaganda is countered with efforts from the Government and prove that Indian products have excellent quality and cheaper prices," he said. He also suggested to bring more countries, like UAE which is emerging as a favourite port, on-board to fight against the agenda of the multinationals.

The DCGI informed of the industry representatives that India had struck a dissenting note to the proposed definition at the recent IMPACT meeting at Bonn. Brazil and many countries in the South East Asia region supported the Indian view. The meet between the DCGI and the industry has decided to collect the views of all industry bodies and other concerned groups on the subject by January 6, so that India can strongly place its views in the executive board meeting of the WHO from January 19.