Tamil Nadu Chemists and Allied Distributors Alliance Ltd. (TNCADA), a corporate model drug distribution company launched by the Tamil Nadu Chemists and Druggists Association, as a subsidiary of the All India Origin Chemists and Druggists Limited (AIOCD), is all set to corporatise the pharmaceutical trade in the state.

As part of this plan, all the retail shops will be given accreditation once they comply with the norms set by the company, said M Arulkumar, managing director of the TNCADA and the general secretary of the Chemists and Druggists Association of the State.

"Our aim is to protect our traders from multinational companies and preserve our identity in a unified manner. For the last three years, a lot of corporates have up and tried to dominate the domestic market. It is our duty to protect our members by entering into organized wholesaling and retailing under a corporate umbrella", he said.

With a standardized operational system, the company will take steps to initiate some innovative measures to upgrade the standard of the chemists. Some of these initiatives are providing uniforms to the pharmacists in the medical store, regular counseling of pharmacists, air-conditioning of all medical stores, attaining global standards in storage facility, uniform sign boards and common color for the shops.

Those shops which follow these norms will be given accreditation. For the small retailers, financial assistance will be arranged through nationalized banks and schemes for insurance coverage will also be introduced, the director of the TNCADA said.

Arul Kumar spelled out that the parental association, AIOCD, was one of the biggest organizations in Asia with six lakh members across the country, which decided to consolidate the fragmented retailers in the country to bring them under one umbrella with one uniform operational code.

In Tamil Nadu alone, the association has near about 30,000 members that include chemists, druggists, wholesalers, retailers and clearing and forwarding agencies, according to a statistical report brought out by the chemists and druggists wing.

"So far the association (TNCDA) was concentrating on the welfare of the members only. Now with the entrance of the multinationals into the domestic market, we need to face the challenges of the foreign investors. So we are now engaged in the task of upgrading the standard of professionalism of the drug distribution industry as per international norms. Pharmacy business is not a trade but a service oriented healthcare activity", he opined.

In the case of pharmacy ethics, he said the company would do everything in proper manner, in liaison with the TNCDA. Every state in India will form its own company as subsidiary to the AIOCD Ltd. TNCADA is also conducting an educational program for the practicing pharmacists of Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry on July 13 in Pondicherry along with the Annual conference of Indian Pharmacological Society. The conference is funded by WHO and in which the Director of the Maharashtra State Pharmacy Council's Drug Information Center, Dr Sampada Patwardhan will deliver a lecture on 'Patient Counseling by Retail Pharmacists'.