New Delhi: A group of foreign multinational pharmaceutical companies has reached out to the Indian government seeking clarity on whether doctors can attend medical conferences outside India on the invitation of companies headquartered abroad, ThePrint has learned.
This comes in the wake of the department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) notifying the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP) 2024 last month, which replaced a 2015 code.
The new UCPMP, which seeks to draw a line of “ethical relationships” between medical professionals and drugmakers, clearly says that pharmaceutical companies should not organise conferences for doctors in foreign locations.
Also, as per the code, the engagement of pharmaceutical industry with healthcare professionals for continuing medical education (CME), continuing professional development (CPD) or for conferences, seminars and workshops should only be allowed through a well-defined, transparent, and verifiable set of guidelines based on which the pharmaceutical industry may undertake such expenditures.
The new code says that conduct of such events in foreign locations is prohibited but pharmaceutical companies, including their trusts or associations, either alone or in collaboration with professional bodies, can organise such conferences in India.
The code, however, is voluntary in nature, like its previous version and the implementation is to be monitored by pharma associations.
Anil Matai, director general of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), a network of research-based global pharmaceutical companies in India, said the organisation had reached out to the government a few days ago to understand what happens in cases where medical conferences are organised by firms headquartered abroad.
“Many times, companies want doctors to join conferences where breakthrough therapies are launched or a drug is approved for a new indication or a new class of action — so will the new code mean that Indian doctors will not attend these events at all?” Matai said to ThePrint.
“Since our member companies are outside India, they normally organise such events abroad, and the intent is not to take doctors to foreign locations but to expose them to breakthrough developments in the pharma sector,” he said.
“Therefore, we have requested the government to elaborate on the provision and also sought clarity on when the new rules come into effect.”
Matai also said that all members of the organisation were bound by the OPPI’s stringent code of pharmaceutical practices that were far more strict than India’s UCPMP and drew clear boundaries for relationships between pharma firms and healthcare professionals.
In response to a query by ThePrint, DoP secretary Arunish Chawla said the department has heard the group and a “decision will be taken in due course”.
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‘Need strict norms’
As part of the new UCPMP, pharmaceutical companies have been asked to share details of conferences conducted by them, including the expenditures incurred, on their website, and the information shared may be subjected to independent, random, or risk-based audit.
All organisers will need to explicitly spell out the procedure followed in the selection of participants and speakers, display a statement of their funding sources and expenditures on their website, and may be subject to special audit for this purpose, it says.
Dr R.V. Asokan, president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), the largest network of doctors in India, said the association was in line with the government’s norms.
“I think in today’s digital age, where technology can be easily utilised for knowledge sharing, physical distance is not really a barrier,” he said.
“Doctors not being allowed to attend medical conferences abroad is absolutely understandable and those who wish to do so in order to progress their careers can spend the money themselves,” Asokan added.
Dr Arun Gadre of the Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) echoed similar sentiments saying despite the UCPMP having been in place since 2015, the “unethical” relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies continues — even though it has become discreet now.
“A large number of companies continue to spend crores of rupees through associations (of doctors) by sponsoring medical conferences. They spend huge amounts on travel, accommodation and other expenditures on doctors through lavish arrangements of conferences,” he said.
He added it was contradictory that while the Indian Medical Council (professional conduct, etiquette and ethics) regulations 2002 applied to doctors having statutory standing, the norms applicable to pharma companies were only advisory in nature.
The ADEH, in a statement in March, demanded the UCPMP be made mandatory saying unhealthy practices by pharmaceutical companies of bribing doctors and giving them freebies added to the cost of drugs which ultimately burdened patients’ pockets.
The alliance had said: “Pharma Companies through their propaganda, also promote use of irrational Fixed Dose Combinations (FDCs) they make. As is well known, in addition to increasing the prices of medicines, the unnecessary exposure to the unnecessary components of irrational FDCs expose patients to unnecessary medication and their side effects. In the case of antibiotics this also results in dangerous antimicrobial resistance.”
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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