India's Medical Council calls for drugmakers to be punished for offering doctors gifts

Aiming to bring drugmakers in line with regulations applying to physicians, the Medical Council of India has asked the Union Health Ministry to amend the Drugs and Cosmetics Act to bring the pharmaceutical companies in line with legislation and making them punishable for giving gifts and freebies to doctors to whom they promote their drugs.

At present, only the doctors who accept gifts from pharmaceutical companies are subject to action by the MCI, whose chairman, Ketan Desai, has written to the Ministry suggesting the cancellation of licenses of drugmakers who are found to be involved in unethical marketing practices.

Coming close on the heels of its recent notification under which the doctors who accept any kind of gifts from pharma companies will be open to cancellation of their registration to practice, the MCI's new initiative would bring drugmakers under the law in which they will be punished if found guilty of giving any kind of gift to the doctors as part of their promotional activity, reports the local news service PharmaBiz.