A year has passed since the Union Health Ministry set out to ban the private production and sale of Oxytocin, a drug used to treat excessive bleeding during child-birth.

The private ban, though, never came to be, as it was contested at the Delhi High Court. In the months that followed, the fissures on Oxytocin only got deeper as the government move was opposed by industry players like Mylan, doctor associations and health advocacy group the All-India Drug Action Network, separately.

Last December, the Delhi High Court quashed the government’s decision in a 100-page judgment calling it “unreasonable” and “arbitrary”. But the government appealed this decision at the Supreme Court earlier this year and the case comes up on Tuesday.

The rationale behind the Centre’s attempt to ban private producers of Oxytocin was to curb the misuse of the drug in dairy and poultry sectors, where it is used to increase milk secretion and production. Concerns were also raised on its reported misuse in young girls to advance puberty. The Centre had already taken measures to curb veterinary misuse. But it decided to further tighten supplies of the drug for human use as well by appointing a public sector unit, Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals Ltd (KAPL), as the sole producer of the drug, once the private producers ban came into effect.

Shortage of Oxytocin

Doctors from across the country warned of Oxytocin shortages in hospital supplies, triggered by what they called the Centre’s “short sighted” view to replace multiple producers of the drug with a single company, and one who had not made the product before. The Centre was looking to replace private competition with a PSU monopoly, a doctor told BusinessLine , worried about the dependence on one company.

A person familiar with the PSU, however, countered that interested parties were indulging in scare mongering. The PSU had upped production capacity since last July when the private ban was to come into effect, he said, unwilling to be named or give details since the case was in Court.

Calling for a government rethink on the private producer ban, an industry representative said that having legitimate producers would mean that the product and its sale and use were traceable. If the government wants to curb its misuse, it needed to act on illegal supplies of the bulk drug (used to make the final drug) making its way into India from other countries.

Closing the tap on supplies could have worrisome consequences in hospitals specially since India has about 26 million births a year, a gynaecologist cautioned.