Predatory pricing of drugs posing threat to public health, say chemists
Vijayawada:Chemists and druggists have appealed to the central government to disallow e-pharmacies, stop predatory pricing of medicines by corporate pharma giants and withdraw emergency notifications issued during Covid-19.
These, they said in a statement on Tuesday, are posing a major threat to public health.
A call has been issued by their association for a nation-wide shut down on May 20. They alleged that the e-pharmacy platforms are taking advantage of regulatory relaxations and selling medicines without prescription issued by a qualified doctor and based on AI generated fake prescriptions.
This, they said, is resulting in uncontrolled availability of antibiotics, habit forming drugs and even abortion pills.
The usage of antibiotics and other medicines without the supervision of a qualified doctor for various health issues is causing antimicrobial resistance among the patients which in turn is posing a major threat to their life, they claimed.
Moreover, the deep discount on prices of certain medicines being offered by some corporate pharma giants has been a cause of concern as it causes unfair competition and threatens the very survival of small chemists in rural and semi-urban areas and this in turn will destroy the accessible medicine supply system.
The chemists and druggists are seeking withdrawal of some notifications issued by the Centre during the Covid-19 period. The first one is identified as GSR 220 (E) dated 26-03-2020 which relaxed the mandatory norms mainly to have original prescription and stamping of prescription to get medicines across the counter in a pharmacy and this is getting misused.
The second one is GSR 817 (E) dated August 28, 2018, enabling the functioning of e-pharmacies to sell medicines online. This, they said, is resulting in fake prescriptions issued in the name of non-existent doctors, spread of counterfeit medicines and even sale of habit forming drugs and Schedule H/H1 medicines posing health risk to the patients.
The chemists and druggists feel sale of medicines online through e-pharmacies without adequate regulatory control will badly affect the patients as they may resort to abuse of certain drugs and develop drug resistance.
Association president P Venkata Ratnam said, “The central government is urged to intervene and resolve our issues.”
India has over 12.40 lakh chemists and distributors while nearly 4-5 crore people depend for their livelihood on this sector
Offering of heavy discount in price of medicines beyond margins prescribed under Drug Price Control Order and National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, may be regulated as per norms.
