The government plan to bring about uniformity in drug prices has been badly hit as pharma companies in excise and non-excise free zones are following different approaches of pricing. There have been no major drug price reductions in recent days although there had been minor adjustments in pricing among companies.

Though NPPA has been making efforts to bring in uniformity in prices by price control, certain limitations are acting as barriers.

While the small-scale pharma units continue to suffer from various policy issues, big pharma units and MNCs continue to increase drug prices. Prices of many more new drugs are expected to increase in the months and years to come, trade sources point out.

Reacting to government plan to allow sale of household remedies in grocery stores or non-pharmacy stores, Dr Ghisulal Jain, president of Andhra Pradesh Chemists and Druggists Association (APCDA) told Pharmabiz that it is not logical to allow non-pharmacist run grocery stores to sell medicaments.

MNCs seem to be comfortable with such move as they expect growth in their revenues if drugs are sold through grocery stores and they can reduce the field force.

The move may have an impact on pharmacy retailers across the country. The industry fears that it can lead to severe violations and unethical practices. The grocery stores may not follow the safety measures such as storing drugs at proper temperature levels and may not have efficient distribution system. This may even lead to increase in supply of spurious drugs into the market.

The Government should involve all the key stakeholders before making a final decision in this direction. As per industry rumours, AIOCD has not been called for discussion by the Government on this matter. It has been a 'hurried' move.

Retail pharmacy trade has been facing a shortage of pharmacists for several years. There is an estimated six lakh stores across India. Some States have a bad reputation of not having qualified pharmacists in about 50 per cent of the stores in their respective States. This certainly needs an improvement, he added.

Among other challenges, he pointed, encouragement of Government to allow large companies to establish pharmacy chains in the country is one of the major concerns for pharmacy trade. Many existing pharmacy chains have started offering unethical discounts on purchase of drugs to attract patients. These pharmacy chains are getting special discounts from pharma companies, which is further leading to unethical trade practices. It is even observed that several drugs are not available in most of the pharmacy chains.

The trade associations are planning to take this issue to the Government recommending control on such permissions. The Indian Medical association (IMA) has also objected the move to allow sale of medicines in grocery stores, as they fear the move will lead to dispensing of medicines without prescription, Dr Jain informed.

Community pharmacists had been serving the nation for several years. The trade associations had been educating and training chemists on various key parameters. The chemists had been instructed to maintain proper storage conditions, records of patients, billing system and establish counselling centres.

Pharmacy trade needs support from Government such as tax, excise and power tariff concessions, subsidies and soft loans to set up and upgrade pharmacy stores which will help in protecting small retail pharmacists and combating large proposed pharmacy chains in the country, he opined.