Key Details
The committee will review the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP) 2024, which governs medicine promotion and pharmaceutical companies’ interactions with healthcare professionals. Its remit covers the code’s operation as well as possible changes to oversight.
Committee: Dr M. Srinivas, Member, NITI Aayog, will chair it. Former Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan and Medanta CMD Dr Naresh Trehan are members.
Review: It will assess monitoring, complaints, oversight and enforcement, and recommend ways to improve transparency and compliance.
Possible legal measures: Its terms of reference permit recommendations for regulatory, statutory or other measures if the committee considers them necessary.
Timeline: Recommendations are due within two months of the committee’s first meeting, after consultation with stakeholders and experts. The release does not give a first-meeting date.
The Review Starts With a Code Already in Force
UCPMP 2024 replaced a voluntary, industry-led code introduced in 2015. The Department describes the current code as mandatory. It sets standards for drug promotion and company interactions with healthcare professionals, including restrictions on gifts and hospitality. Companies must make compliance declarations and disclose specified marketing expenditure.
The existing system is not solely an informal industry pledge: pharmaceutical associations’ ethics committees handle complaints, while appeals go to a committee at the Department of Pharmaceuticals. This is the framework whose effectiveness the new panel has been asked to examine.
The Committee Can Recommend More Than Procedural Changes
The panel’s remit extends from how complaints are monitored and resolved to whether the framework needs stronger regulatory or statutory support. It may consult professional bodies, institutions, technical experts and other stakeholders before making recommendations.
Constituting the committee does not amend UCPMP 2024 or establish that a particular enforcement failure has occurred. The forthcoming report will show which gaps the panel identifies and whether it considers changes to the existing system sufficient.
Policy Relevance
Pharmaceutical marketing rules matter because promotional claims and benefits offered to healthcare professionals can influence prescribing and public trust. For policymakers, the immediate issue is how effectively the current code works in practice: whether complaints can be brought and resolved, disclosures can be scrutinised, and decisions can be enforced.
That evidence should guide the choice between improving the existing association-and-department process and seeking additional legal powers. The committee’s recommendations will be the next policy development; their adoption would require a separate government decision.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders: What evidence from complaints, disclosures and enforcement decisions would show whether UCPMP 2024 needs better implementation or a stronger legal framework?
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