Several top pharma companies in the country are in a serious dilemma over distribution of their products due to the on-going bitter feud between the two pharmaceutical trade bodies in the country, the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) and the All India Chemists & Distributors Federation (AICDF).

According to sources, the 33-year old trade organisation, AIOCD, is leaving no stones unturned to ensure that all pharma products in the country are distributed through its members only. The AIOCD is learnt to have asked the pharma companies (and in some cases even alleged to have given veiled threats) that they are the 'only trade representative body of the industry' in the country and if any company distributes their products through AICDF members in any state, their products will be boycotted in other states.

Sources said that under the influence of this threat perception, several pharma companies including prominent ones like AstraZeneca, Ranbaxy, GSK, MSD, Lupin, Indi Pharma, Zeventus and Indoco Remedies have abruptly stopped distribution of their products to AICDF members without assigning any reasons. That the AICDF has since been able to restore distribution of products to the suspended parties is another story altogether. In this regard, the AICDF had approached the regulatory authorities and the authorities in turn sent show-cause notices to the erring companies.

As the situation remained fluid, the AICDF distributed a letter to the pharma companies asking them "to maintain a transparent affinity in between the people of the Trade & Industry, by discarding the evils who are trying to bring in restlessness, anxiety and discrepancies in the bondage".

In a scathing reply to the AICDF letter, AIOCD wrote to the IDMA asking it "to instruct your members to ignore such letters or correspondence as these letters are the handiwork of few disgruntled elements who have personal selfish motives. The claims that they are working in the interest of the trade are bogus and irrelevant as these so-called saviours are a bunch of frustrated individuals who have been discarded from all trade associations and are desperate to make money at any cost under the garb of working of the chemist fraternity."

"Dealing with such treacherous and unscrupulous elements could have severe repercussions and could damage the formidable bond between the industry and the AIOCD. We do not wish to be provocative against these scoundrels who have no locus standi and are not worth their salt," the letter which has been reproduced in the IDMA bulletin dated 30th July, 2009, continues.

AICDF is a trade body established in 2008 by a group of traders who were "dissatisfied with the arrogant and autocratic way" of functioning of some of the office-bearers of the AIOCD. Now, the AICDF claims to have presence in 14 states in the country and in the coming six months, all the states will be covered.