The Consortium of Indian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Marketers Association (CIPMMA), a Trichy based national organisation in Tamil Nadu working for coordinating the pharmaceutical wholesalers and marketers, will shortly become part of the state branch of the Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (TN IDMA), according to sources from the marketers association.

The founder members of the Consortium said, the TN IDMA has started absorbing CIPMMA members by giving ‘Associate Membership’ to each member and assigning on special duties to strengthen the organisation in Tamil Nadu. The new organisational strategy was introduced mainly for business growth of the industry, after J Jayaseelan, the managing director of Delvin Pharma, took charge as the chairman of TN IDMA. Since the members of CIPMMA are not manufacturers, they are given only associate membership, but they will work for marketing the pharmaceutical and neutraceutical products of the IDMA members.

A Kannan, convener of the apex committee of CIPMMA, has been given the south zone charge for planning and marketing of IDMA activities. He was one of the key persons to hold Pharmac South, an exhibition of pharmaceutical products, in Chennai in 2015 and 2014. Karunai Kadal, chairman of CIPMMA, will be the adviser of the planning and marketing division.

Industry sources informed Pharmabiz that since the members of CIPMMA (marketers) become associate members of IDMA, the manufacturers can directly sell their products to CIPMMA members who will market them in their sources. They will act as their marketing agents, and the industry need not take the risk of finding out separate marketing people for their products. CIPMMA will undertake the whole marketing of products of all the IDMA members. Gradually the marketing division of the manufacturing companies will be managed by the members of CIPMMA.

By using the potential and wide network of CIPMMA, the industry can widen their market all over India. In addition to this, they can prevent import of medicines to Tamil Nadu from other states and the products of the domestic companies will be circulated all over the state. Since the marketers have business tie-up with distributors in other states, they will sell the products of Tamil Nadu companies to their clients in the neighboring states.

When contacted A. Kannan, apex committee convener of CIPMMA, said “There is no such decision of joining together and become one organization, but this is an ‘alliance’ for mutual benefit. We are associating with them. This will help the industry and also the members of CIPMMA. After all, we are all business people”.
 
To a query whether his members have any plan to associate with Tamil Nadu Chemists And Druggists Association (TNCDA) or TN Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (TN PMA), Kannan responded that both the organisations were having different agenda and CIPMMA could not associate with any of them as most of their members were partly manufacturers also.

However, he added that units of CIPMMA would be formed in all the remaining districts. The 9th annual general body of the association will be held in Chennai on the 16th and 17th of June this year.