Best Practices in Pharma Marketing

Manoj Kumar | September 2016

INTRODUCTION

The Indian Pharmaceutical Industry has been witnessing remarkable growth over past few years. A highly organized sector, the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry is estimated to be worth $ 4.5 billion, growing at about 8 to 9 percent annually.

In the absence of adequate mandatory norm setting in the industry, the alleged aggressive marketing by the pharma companies often compel their Marketing Representatives (MRs), to adopt means that are often termed as unethical.

In this regard, the Medical Council of India (“MCI”) had passed the Indian Medical Council (Professional conduct, Etiquettes and Ethics) Regulations in 2002 which were amended in 2009 and later the Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) came up with OPPI Code of Pharmaceutical Practices 2010 which was further amended in 2012 in order to regulate and restrict the conduct of medical practitioners, but both being voluntary in nature served little purpose.

The UCPMP sought to counter such unethical promotional practices, with the Code, placing restrictions on:

The number of drug samples that can be handed over to Healthcare Professionals (“HCPs”).
Giving of gifts for the personal benefit of HCPs.
Extending travel facilities to HCPs for attending conferences and seminars as delegates.
Extending hospitality under any pretext to any HCP.
Permitted number of pages for medical advertisement is reduced to two three pages.
Ban on outright and promotional competition because they “trivialize the information about medicines”.
Free samples to any person who is not qualified to prescribe such product.
Visual Promotional Material must be consistent with the requirement of the code.

Why the Code should be mandatory rather than voluntary?

Even the UCPMP, being voluntary in nature, has left the issues remain unresolved. As per a survey conducted by Ernst & Young India it was found that the effectiveness of the UCPMP will be low in the absence of legislative support to the UCPMP.

The Ministry of Chemical and Fertilizers, Government of India feels that the Government should now impose a mandatory code of conduct along with penal provisions for both the medical practitioner and the pharmaceutical company who are found to be indulging in any unethical practices.

Therefore, to ensure fair marketing in the Pharma Industry it is essential to make such best practices code mandatory and give it legal teeth.

Since the voluntary UCPMP has proved that it is not a panacea for all malpractices in the Pharmaceutical industry therefore the DOP is working on a Draft, to meet the following challenges:

Elevated cost of drugs due to doctor’s motivated prescription.

Inability to impose fine for companies who had broken the voluntary code.

Lack of strong deterrents and cumbersome process. Irrespective of whatever has happened in the past, no government with a committed agenda of ‘Good Governance’ can afford to ignore the conflict of interests of such kind and magnitude between doctors and pharma companies.

The establishment of penal provisions for better enforceability and a statutory obligation to follow the code is the only way to regulate unethical promotional practices in the Pharma Sector.

Therefore, it is about time to put in place a mandatory uniform code on Pharma marketing practices that can be carefully scrutinized, thoroughly implementable and measured with transparent yardsticks.