The Union health ministry’s ban of 344 FDC drugs has turned out to be a big burden for the small scale pharma manufacturers and contract manufacturers of Kerala as, taking advantage of the government ban, the wholesalers are returning products even of non-banned categories whose sales have come down in the market due to the arrival of newer drugs or other brands.

According to the manufacturers, these products were sold to the distributors as per their order. In the backdrop of the recent government ban, the traders are sending these non-banned medicines back to the companies. These items are reaching the companies along with the banned FDCs, said industry sources.

Sources further said the drug inspectors in Kerala are regularly visiting all the retail and wholesale stores and instructing them to return all the banned medicines and asking for list of already sent items. So, the traders have no other choice other than sending the drugs back to the manufacturers. But, along with the banned products, they are now sending non-banned items also.

“Without any proper reason, they are sending the sold products back to us because of poor sale. The banned combination brands are coming back every day. Along with them, the traders are sending the products which they do not want to market. What can we do, our godowns are now full with the returned products which are not banned. Ours is also a business,” says Purushothaman Namboothiri, president of the Kerala Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (KPMA).

He said the ban has completely destroyed the contract manufacturing sector and most of them are in trouble. No agency or government is there to help the industry. Regarding banned products, he said all the traders are returning all the brands.

When compared to other states, the most suffering manufacturers are in Kerala. They are the biggest loss bearers and sufferers. An overnight decision to ban the decades old medicines has actually weakened the industry and is killing the small scale entrepreneurs, said a manufacturer from Thrissur, a member of the KPMA.

Generally known as a consumer state in the case of medicine consumption also, Kerala has a few well established pharmaceutical manufacturing companies under SME sector, additionally an equal number of contract manufacturers. Seventy per cent of the total quantity of drugs marketed all over the state, and supplied in public and private health centres is manufactured from other states. A lion's portion of the medicines supplied by the state medical services corporation (KMSCL) is also imported from big players out of the state.