The Central government is undertaking a major revision of the official technical list of drugs for government procurement. A high-level committee appointed by the Union health minister, Dr. C. P. Thakur is currently reviewing the VMS list (vocabulary of medical stories list) and the CGHS formulary against which purchase of drugs for government hospitals and public sector undertakings are made.

With the revision, the VMS list, wherein drugs are currently named mostly on a generic basis, is likely to expand with the inclusion of more proprietary (branded) medicines, sources said.

This change would bolster the business prospect of leading drug companies with a significant increase in their institutional sales. Barring a few autonomous agencies like the Armed Services Medical Stores, ESI Directorate, Railways and the AIIMS, which purchase drugs against their own formularies, all government hospitals and PSUs buy drugs against the VMS list through the Medical Stores Organizations.

The review committee members include Dr Pandey, professor, AIIMS, Dr Jagdish Prashad, medical superintendent, Safdarjung Hospital New Delhi, Dr. Bhargava, of PGI Chandigarh, Dr Prabhat Ranjan of Patna Medical College, Gujarat FDA commissioner and Ashwini Kumar, Drug Controller General of India.

Sources said that the technical specifications for government procurement of drugs are being increasingly flouted with each review of the VMS list. The current revision, sources familiar with the process said, is likely to lead to inclusion of a lot of substitution products and "unethical" proprietary medicines into the list. They said the list should be on the lines of the hospital formularies of the leading medical institutions prepared by doctors of various specialties. As far as possible one should stick to the generic names and naming brands in the list would not only result in favouring particular companies but would lead to price increases to the beneficiaries.

In fact, various high level committees that had looked into the system of government purchase of drugs in the country, including the Committee headed by former health secretary, Vaidyanathan averred that brands should not be preferred.