Dawn Of A Digital Marketing Era

The draft guideline of UCPMP restricts pharma companies from a lot of traditional marketing practices, however, it opens new doors of opportunity to leverage digital platform

- Usha Sharma

Indian pharmaceutical companies spend a substantial amount of their annual budgets on promotion and other marketing activities to influence and update healthcare professionals about their company’s brand. However, often there have been allegations of unethical practices such as to luring and bribing healthcare professionals through cash and kind, to further their products and brands. In a bid to curb these unethical marketing practices in the pharma industry, the government is in the process of enforcing the Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP).

The UCPMP guidelines refer to services that pharma companies offer to doctors such providing gifts, sponsorships to conferences, hospitality and cash or monetary grants. It also restricts pharma companies from giving away free samples of drugs and promotional material such as mailing journals. It also mentions, “Where there is any item missing, the code of MCI as per Indian Medical Council (Professional, Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulation, 2002 as amended from time to time, will prevail.”

The guidelines demand a major mind-set change from the industry begin with.

Dr Arun Mitra, Sr Vice President, Indian Doctors for Peace and Development, Member Core Committee Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Practices and Former Chairman, Ethical Committee Punjab Medical Council explains, “So far, some pharma companies have been saying that they have to give freebies or extra profits to doctors selling branded generic drugs because their sale will be affected otherwise. They may find transition phase difficult. But in the long run this will be beneficial.”