The pharmaceutical traders in South India have decided to postpone their proposed plan to boycott all Pfizer products from 1st of September, following an informal assurance from the top level AIOCD office bearers to discuss and solve the issue soon.

AICOD South Zone office bearers said a final decision on the boycott would be taken after the national executive committee meeting of AIOCD at Jaipur on 12th of September. However, Pharmabiz learnt that so far the AIOCD national office bearers have not responded to a communication from the South traders on the proposed boycott and its reasons.

"Since our office bearers have assured us to discuss the issue on 12th September at the national executive, it is not fair on our part to launch the boycott from today. We are also part of the national executive and this is an internal issue, which we hope to get solved soon. We have decided to postpone the boycott till the Jaipur meeting," said A N Mohan, joint secretary and convener, South Zone of AIOCD.

When Pharmabiz pointed out that the AIOCD national executive have not respond to the communication from the South Zone traders regarding the boycott issue, he said it could be due to various reasons. " We were busy with a few other trade issues and the Onam festival holidays in Kerala. It is festival time in North India as well. So we could not communicate much in the last one week or so and I think the national body may not have got adequate time to discuss the issue," said Mohan.

It may be noted that Pharmabiz had reported earlier that the executive committee of the AICOD South Zone consisting of the states of Kerala, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Pondicherry had met at Guruvayoor two weeks ago and decided to boycott all the Pfizer products, in protest against an agreement on trade margins between AICOD national executive with the Pfizer management on margins for the products of the erstwhile Parke-Davis, which was merged with Pfizer.

The AICOD agreement with the Pfizer management to fix trade margins inclusive of excise duty for all the decontrolled drugs of Parke Davis could create a wrong precedence and the traders may lose more than one per cent margin in the process, explain the South traders.

While reacting to the news, J S Shinde, general secretary of AICOD had told Pharmabiz that the apex body would take severe action against the dissenting association members if they go ahead with the proposed strike without the consent of the national executive.