A racket involving a prominent multinational company bypassing the retail chemists and selling drugs directly to the patients with the help of medical representatives in Mumbai has been detected. This came to light when Maharashtra Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) seized several insulin injections from a shop based in Ghatkopar.

The unusual sale point is part of a thriving racket in the city. Sources said that there are MNCs which identify reputed physicians treating lifestyle and other chronic diseases and collect data of patients spending heavily on medicines for these diseases. Medical representatives of the companies then contact these high spending patients and supply medicines directly to them.

According to FDA officials, a nexus between doctors and medical representatives (MR) is selling large quantities of medicines to patients without prescriptions. Under the arrangement, MRs procure the medicines from wholesalers and sell them to patients at a discounted rate. The problem with this type of sale is that there is absolutely no record keeping.

Says ST Patil, joint commissioner, FDA,"Investigation is going on currently and action will be taken in violation of Drugs and Cosmetics Act."

Aggrieved over the growing nexus between physicians and pharma companies, chemists based in Mumbai and Pune, last year, had also approached the state government and the Maharashtra FDA for redressal. The chemist associations have found that these MNCs are selling medicines to the patients with heavy discounts. This unethical practice of the pharma companies is causing big losses to the chemists.

Based on the findings by the city based chemists over the past several months, the matter was reported to the authorities that companies have allegedly supplied medicines of diabetes and cardiac disorders directly to the patients at heavy discounted rates.

City based chemists had carried 5 such operations in Mumbai and Pune to detect such malpractices and found that pharma companies have colluded with physicians to supply medicines having MRP of Rs.500 to consumers. In one such case, medicine stock worth of Rs.20,000 was found in a clinic.

Argues a chemist,"We are the most vulnerable targets when it comes to implementing regulations like Schedule H1 and dispensing prescription drugs. The retail chemists have to bear the brunt of doing the business in a regulated manner, it doesn't matter whether the doctor is supposed to follow the model prescription format issued by the state government recently."