The Government today said that it has prepared a draft Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices to check the “unethical marketing” tactics adopted by some pharmaceutical companies.
In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, the Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers, Mr Srikant Kumar Jena, said: “The Department of Pharmaceuticals has prepared a draft Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCMP), which is to be adopted voluntarily in the first instance.”
This was done after discussing the issue with the pharma associations and industry, he added.
The move follows media reports which highlighted that “some unethical marketing practices were being followed by certain pharmaceutical companies’’.
The UCMP has been put up on the department’s website for comments from all stakeholders. Comments are already coming in and are being examined, Mr Jena added.