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The pharmaceutical trade leader and general secretary of the All-India Chemists and Distributors Federation (AICDF) based in Kolkata, Joydeep Sarkar, has commented that the counterfeit drugs are still in circulation in the nook and corner of the state and they reach West Bengal from other states through local trains and tourist buses from other states.
The association wants some kind of immediate reformation in the distribution system of the CFAs of drug companies to manage the present situation as the retail medicine business in West Bengal has come down drastically due to the news about the counterfeit and fake medicines in the market.
He said all those companies whose products were found counterfeit should be put under the scanner of the drug control department. Further, supply of these suspicious products to hospitals, institutions and to distributors or retailers must be inspected batchwise, and the official records of business must be checked. Along with the laboratory reports of these batches should be verified by the authorities.
Sarkar alleged that the initiative of the drug control department to display a list of counterfeit medicines in front of all medical shops and wholesalers’ shops is of no use as nobody is going to read the list displayed in front of a medical shop. The layman who wants to purchase one medicine from a medical store may not know about the content of the drug, whether it is counterfeit or genuine. He said the statutory notices do not contribute even for building awareness among the people.
Sarkar was speaking to Pharmabiz over phone from Kolkata, and to one query whether WB drug control department has sufficient infrastructure and skilled inspectors, he said the inspectors are skilled and trained ones, but supporting machinery is not sufficient.
He said his association, AICDF, is ready to conduct awareness programmes about counterfeit and fake medicines provided the West Bengal drug control administration provides all the details of the counterfeit issues. He said the increasing news about fake medicines adversely affects the business of the retail shops. Besides, it reduces the confidence of the shop owners to run the medical shops. The retail medicine business has come down in West Bengal.
About the awareness programmes being conducted by several associations, Joydeep said all these awareness campaigns will do some good for the public, but they cannot stop dealings of counterfeit or fake medicines’ inflow. He suggests that the government should take some special steps for completely eradicating the monopolistic or restrictive dealings in medicines. Licensees should have the provision and right to exercise their conditions of licence, for which all complaints of non-cooperation should be attended by the regulatory authority. Similarly, the government should become agile and strict to weed out the expired, soiled, damaged, unused and unsold medicines from the market, as the chances for recycling of the content are higher.
About discount pharmacies’ business, AICDF says that there is no legal right for such medical shops to give discounts on medicine prices. But there are government fair price shops which give 55 per cent to 75 per cent discounts. The propaganda about unethical business by discount pharmacies is decreasing the business of the retail shops.
Another suggestion he makes before the government is that the authorities should issue strictures for ‘not allowing’ any kind of schemes or freebies in the sale of pharmaceuticals as medicines are used or needed as per ‘particular and precise requirement’.
When asked whether marketing companies are clandestinely manufacturing and supplying medicines of popular brands, AICDF secretary said such allegation cannot be ruled out as most of the unauthorised dealers are there in West Bengal. But, he said, the medicines they supply are not spurious, but likely to be substandard. Some laboratory tests need to be done. Some companies are also aware of these duplicate items, he added.
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