The market for over the counter (OTC) drugs in India is about Rs 2,000 crore, and forms a miniscule four per cent of the total pharmaceutical market in India, but it has a potential to grow up to 26 per cent, according to Ajita Panshikar, Head National Retail Sales, A C Nielson ORG-MARG Pvt. Ltd.

Speaking at a daylong workshop titled "Unlocking the OTC future" held in Mumbai today, Panshikar pointed out that many drugs that did not come under Schedule G or H of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules were nevertheless marketed as prescription drugs. These drugs, which formed a massive 22 per cent of total pharmaceutical sales in India, could easily be marketed as OTC under the existing laws.

The seminar was organized by the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), which has also put together a "Code of Ethics for Advertisement of Drugs" to be followed in promoting OTC drugs in the mass media. The code was released by Dr. M Venkateswarulu, Deputy Drugs Controller of India (Western Zone), at the start of the proceedings on Tuesday.

In his welcome address, Bharat Patel, chairman of P & G Hygiene and Healthcare Ltd, and chief of the OPPI's OTC committee, observed that many drug companies continued to use medical representatives to promote even those products for which no prescription was required by law.

Patel said this could change in the near future because mass media advertising costs were beginning to stabilize, while the expenses involved in retail sales through doctors' prescriptions was going up steadily.

Another notable speaker was Dr Jerome Reinstein, Director General of World Self Medication Industry (WSMI), who observed that in some European countries prescription drugs were reimbursed by the social security system while OTC drugs were not. This also stood in the way of rapid growth of the OTC market in those countries.