Ban on 344 drugs welcomed by pharma industry

Hyderabad: At the two-day conference at National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), a section of the pharma industry welcomed the government’s ban of 344 drugs stating that it was “required for the safety of patients”.

According to the pharma industry, there was no “clinical data on the efficacy of these medicines”. Dr Sanjit Singh Lamba said, “Earlier, clinical data on the drugs was not mandatory. Drugs that had been introduced years ago are being continued with but independent research data on their efficacy is not available. With reports of adverse drug reactions being collected and studied at hospital level, it is becoming important to re-look into these drugs. Some of the habit-forming drugs are very harmful and they need to be closely monitored.”

Project director of Niper, Dr Ahmed Kamal said, “Long-term use of these FDC’s has now brought out aspects of drug interactions in the body which are showing concerning side-effects. This has raised the substantial issue of safety of patients.”

The pharmaco vigilance department is insisting on recording adverse drug reactions during “trial test marketing of drugs” and also during hospital administration to evaluate its efficacy.

A senior pharma industry official said, “The concern is introducing too much toxic drugs to the body when it is not required. For example the bioavailability of ciprofloxacin is reported to decrease by 90 per cent when administered with antacids containing aluminum or magnesium hydroxide. If that is so then ciprofloxacin must be given as a single dose drug, but most of them are not aware of it.”