Banned. But, What Next?

Last year, 344 fixed-dose combination drugs were banned. Panicked pharma companies went to court and got it revoked in Delhi and stayed in a few states. But patients were left in the lurch. While the legal procedure is still on, the government needs to go beyond the ban and better the efforts at regulating the manufacture and sale of such drugs.

- Anuradha Varanasi

On March 10, 2016, the Union health ministry came out with a notification banning 344 fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs. The pharmaceutical sector went into a tizzy, patients panicked, chemists tried to compound the matter with their own combinations, but confusion reigned. The notification was a buzzkill for junkies like Ajmal Sheikh, too. In 2013, the 20-year-old Mumbai resident had been prescribed Corex cough syrup for his persistent cough and cold. But soon, he started abusing Corex—a combination of chlorpheniramine maleate and codeine phosphate developed by Pfizer— downing two-three bottles in a day with friends. Doctors say codeine, which is an opiate drug, is highly addictive and is very commonly misused by people. The cough syrup was one of the banned FDC drugs.

Before the ban, says Sheikh, he would buy Corex cough syrup without a prescription from his hometown in Uttar Pradesh. In Mumbai, it was difficult to get it without prescription, but not impossible. “I discovered I could buy it for twice the rate in the black market,” he says. After the ban, his codeine addiction only became more expensive. “A 100ml bottle of Corex cough syrup costs around 190 and I would buy it for 1200 from my dealer, who sells prescription drugs right behind a police station next to my house. After the ban, the price shot up to 1300 for a bottle,” he says.