A few days after the government banned 328 combination drugs, the Supreme Court on Monday allowed the sale of Saridon for now.
The Supreme Court. (Photo: IANS)
A few days after the government banned 328 combination drugs, the Supreme Court on Monday allowed the sale of Saridon for now.
The drug makers had filed a petition in the court.
The apex court has sought the Centre’s reply to petitions filed against the order to ban the fixed-dose combinations manufactured before 1988.
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The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday had banned the manufacture and sale or distribution of 328 fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs with immediate effect.
It had restricted the manufacture, sale or distribution of six FDCs subject to certain conditions, the Ministry said in a statement. FDCs are two or more drugs combined in a fixed ratio into a single dosage form.
The banned medicines included brands like Piramal’s Saridon, Alkem Laboratories’ Taxim AZ and Macleods Pharma’s Panderm Plus cream.
The Ministry of Health, through its notification published on March 10, 2016, had prohibited the manufacture for sale and distribution for human use of 349 FDCs under Section 26 A of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.
But the matter was contested by the affected manufacturers in various high courts and the Supreme Court.
Complying with the Supreme Court verdict in December last year, an expert panel formed by the Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB), in its report to the Centre, stated that there was no therapeutic justification for the ingredients contained in 328 FDCs and that these FDCs may involve risk to human beings, the statement stated.
The Board recommended that it is necessary to prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of these FDCs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 in the larger public interest.
Considering the recommendations of DTAB and the expert committee, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, through a gazette notification, prohibited the FDCs.
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