The Karnataka Chemists & Druggists Association (KCDA), affiliated to the All India Organisations of Chemists & Druggists (AIOCD) has agreed to restore the drug availability across the 22,000 outlets in the state.

The Association was called upon by the Karnataka drugs controller Dr B R Jagashetty to have an open discussion on the reason for shortage of drugs including those for chronic conditions like hypertension, epilepsy, antibiotics and pain killers among others where patients could not do away with these medicines.

After the discussion with the state drugs control department, officials of the Association are now making efforts to speak to the manufacturers to speed up the drug supplies to the wholesalers.

KCDA president KE Prakash told Pharmabiz that the main reason for the shortage of brands was that manufacturers were not able to provide the new labelled drugs even after the 45 days period given under the DPCO 2013 to supply required medicines at the revised price. The short-supply of drugs was attributed to the delay in delivering the in new cartons labelled with revised rates from godowns to the retailers. However, the issue will be sorted out within two to three days.

As such there has been no shortage but looks like an artificial scarcity was created in the pharmacy outlets across the state, said Dr B R Jagashetty, Karnataka drugs controller.

My team of officers have been updating on the issue and have informed that the issue was related to the branded drugs. Unnecessary confusion was caused where pharmacy trade was trying to highlight the shortage. As such all drugs are available and since it is with certain brands the state licensing authority was not responsible for this. This was because brands were not approved at the state drugs control departments but was submitted only to the Drugs Control General of India office, said Dr Jagashetty.

If the pharmacy retail and wholesale outlets had issues with the trade  margins, then matters were required to be brought to the notice of the  department of pharmaceuticals and the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, said Dr Jagashetty.

As per the Drugs & Cosmetics Act, strict action against retailers and wholesalers would be taken by the state licensing authority if pharmacy outlets deliberately created a shortage. Now to ensure to restore the regular supplies of the drugs including brands, the State drugs control department has also provided details of the contact points to source the drugs across Bengaluru.

We are now confident that normalcy of drug supply would be restored and this would not put consumers into any difficulty, said Raghuram Bhandary, additional drugs controller, Karnataka drugs control department.