Alleging that the Union government’s drug policy is to create a pro-corporate approach in the field of pharmaceutical business and helping foreign retail chains to dominate the Indian drug market, the Uttar Pradesh Chemists and Distributors’ Association (UPCDA) has decided to launch a series of agitations across the state to strengthen the pan India protest to be staged by the All India Chemists and Distributors Federation (AICDF), said its president.

AICDF’s nationwide agitation is against the Union health ministry’s decision to make changes in the Drugs & Cosmetics Act and Rules in order to make only registered pharmacists eligible for possession and wholesale business of medicines. Currently, majority of the wholesalers, distributors and marketers of pharmaceutical products are not pharmacists, but persons with different educational background. In Uttar Pradesh alone, ninety per cent of the more than one lakh pharma traders are non-pharmacist businessmen.

Vibha Shankar Singh, president of UPCDA, while sharing information with Pharmabiz said the Union government is under pressure from multinational companies and big corporates who are adopting various strategies to increase their access to the Indian drug market. The reported move of the government to make only registered pharmacists eligible for wholesale pharma trade is geared to the interests of multinationals to monopolise the trade sector, he alleged.

Prior to its decision to go for statewide agitations, UPCDA office-bearers have met the commissioner of the state food and drugs administration (FDA) and apprised him that the decision of the central government, if it is implemented, will affect the lives of more than one lakh families and their businesses in UP. Consequently, the total medicine distribution system will collapse. The association has given memorandums, in addition to the FDA commissioner, to the health secretary and to all the district magistrates, said Vibha.

According to sources, the pan India protest by AICDF will be kicked off next month with a protest rally at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. The general secretary of AICDF, Joydeep Sarkar, said his organisation is getting immense support from various trade organisations from all over India, especially from the south and from the north east to launch the agitation.

“We strongly oppose this proposed amendment as we have been in the field since the drug act came into existence. During our eight decades service, no mistake, either minor or major, was reported from anywhere in the state. Now the entire scenario in the pharma industry has changed. The pharmacies have no existence in the country, only finished products are sold from the retail outlets. We are neither making any preparation of medicines in our licensed premises, nor compounding or dispensing in our shops. So, making pharmacists the competent persons for wholesale business is irrational and illogical,” Vibha Shankar Singh opined.

In Tamil Nadu, the Consortium of Indian Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Marketers Association (CIPMMA), a national organisation of wholesalers, has decided to undertake protest campaigns in conjunction with the state branch of AICDF to support the nationwide stir.