Novartis India has come out with a new marketing gimmick by launching an ayurvedic product, Khatika Churna-Calcium Sandoz@250, and is being aggressively promoted it through allopathic doctors. The product contains no calcium but the company is apparently using its decade old Calcium Sandoz brand name to give a push to the new product.

The label of the product says it as an 'ayurvedic propreitary medicine' with no mention of calcium at all. Both the wholesalers and the retail chemists have raised serious objections over this illegal promotion of the drug by Novartis and have written to the company management seeking clarifications.

According to informed sources, Novartis' brand Calcium Sandoz@250, a price controlled product, has been in the market for decades and the company wanted to withdraw the same once the new product, Khatika Churna-Calcium Sandoz@250, clicks in the market.

The Pharmaceutical Wholesalers Association (PWA) and the Retail Dispensing Chemists and Druggists Association (RDCA) have objected to the promotion of Khatika Churna-Calcium Sandoz@250 through allopathic doctors. The product is promoted through and prescribed by allopathic doctors for some time now. The product is available in pack of 100 chewable tablets and in soft chew butterscotch pack 30.

PWA and RDCA joint coordination committee president Dilip Mehta said that as per the rules, allopathic doctors are not supposed to prescribe products containing ayurvedic ingredients and chemists can't honour such prescriptions. Such activities will put the entire chemist fraternity in legal problem, he said.

Besides, these associations have sought clarifications on the new features, benefits and problems of the new active ingredients in Calcium Sandoz. They also asked the Novartis to clarify what does the 250 in the brand name stand for. Earlier, it meant that each tablet offered 250 mg of elemental calcium. The pharmacists wondered whether it is possible to claim accurately 250 mg of elemental calcium in an ayurvedic product and is an ayurvedic manufacturing process followed for calcium Sandoz.

What is the quantitative and qualitative ayurvedic assay techniques used for the above products, with respect to vitamin D3 and elemental calcium. Ayurvedic products are manufactured as per Bhavanprakasha Nighantg, etc so which reference does this label follow, the associations asked Novartis.

The associations have asked Novartis to withdraw the product immediately from the market as its price and brand name are not printed in Hindi. As per the law, the name and the price of the product must be in Hindi also which is not followed by Novartis in several of its products including Khatika Churna-Calcium Sandoz@250.