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Written By: Editorial Team | Updated : June 20, 2013 3:22 PM IST
Mumbai, June 20: Medical shops in the city claimed that they were running out of medicines as talks between officials of the FDA, the state and representatives of the chemists associations broke down. The situation is likely to get worse if 55,000 stockists go ahead with their threat to surrender their licences on July 15. Distributors had stopped purchasing medicines at the beginning of this month, to protest various things including the new national pricing policy which they say will cut into their margins.
A doctor in the know claimed that the issue needs to be sorted out before it gets out of hand. Wholesalers and retailers have started asking chemists in the city, asking them to surrender their licences. A senior FDA official said the chemists associations were making empty threats to scare people. Why should 55,000 chemists leave business when only 15% of them are not complying with the rules? Our officers are monitoring the supply of medicines closely, said an FDA official.
Why are the chemists striking?
The main bone of contention is the new national drug pricing policy that has put a cap on the price of 348 essential drugs which reduce the profit margin for sellers. The chemists are also peeved about the FDA crackdowns on shops operating without licensed pharmacists and those that do not maintain records like purchase details and bills. The FDA has for long been trying to break the nexus between influential distributors and manufacturers that are forcing small-time stockists out of the game.
