Concerned over the propaganda being orchestrated by the vested interests that around 20-25 per cent of drugs produced in India are spurious drugs, the pharma industry in the country has asked the government to come out strongly with the real picture in this regard to set the record straight once for all.

Industry sources said that the industry raised this issue with Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad when he was in Mumbai recently for the inauguration of the new building of the CDSCO. The industry expressed its displeasure over the repeated projection of Indian pharma industry as the major producers of spurious drugs in the world by the vested interests including some international organisations. The industry asked the minister to come out with a clear picture in this regard.

Some time back, the trade association Assocham had announced that the spurious drugs were growing at 20-25 per cent in the country and a substantial percentage of Indian drugs are spurious drugs. Subsequently, several national and international organisations had quoted the Assocham figure on spurious drugs to tarnish the image of the Indian pharma industry.

More recently, the London-based International Policy Network and Business Monitor International had quoted India as the major contributor of fake drugs. Its findings were reportedly based on the report by trade body Assocham. Besides the foreign media, NGOs, multinational companies, even the WHO had quoted the Assocham report, projecting India as supplier of fake medicines.

Though senior health ministry officials were on record reiterating that the reports such as that of Assocham were baseless and unscientific and it was not based on any survey or findings but has taken into account merely the drop in annual turnover by about 25 per cent of the original manufacturers to draw the conclusions, the industry feels that the government has not done enough to set the record straight.

It is significant that the Union Health Ministry's ambitious nationwide survey to get an authentic estimate of spurious drugs in the country found no significant amount of spurious drugs in the pharmaceutical market. Among the 24,000 samples collected by the government for the survey, only around 10 were found to be spurious. Moreover, Ghulam Nabi Azad in reply to a question had announced in Parliament that spurious drugs in the country are to the tune of 0.3 to 0.4 per cent..

But, the industry feels the government's message did not reach the target and it has to do something to save the Indian pharma industry from this mispropaganda being circulated by vested interests.