The top 300 pharmaceutical brands in the country will now bear a quick response (QR) code on their packaging to rein in spurious drugs and ensure better traceability.
Drug majors Pfizer and Abbott stopped sale of their popular cough syrups Corex and Phensedyl respectively.
The 344 banned drugs include the fixed dose combination of Chlopheniramine Maleate and Codeine syrup sold under the popular cough syrup brand Corex.
'People should know the names of all such drugs which have been banned.'
The next hearing on Pfizer's plea is slated for March 21
Some of the popular brands that would be impacted include Phensedyl (Abbott), Tixylix (Abbott), Gluconorm PG (Lupin), Ascoril D (Glenmark), Solvin Cold (Ipca), D Cold Total (Paras Pharma).
Govt bans brands with annual sales worth Rs 3,728 crore.
'We will have a well-designed product, and not a compromise.' 'We will make a completely contemporary vehicle, in keeping with consumers' aspirations, not like the Nano, which disappointed them,' Sajjan Jindal tells Shreekant Sambrani.
Considering rising dumping of steel into India, steel sector seeks hike in customs duty on steel and steel products from 5% to 15%, and hike export duty on iron ore.
Voveran, Novartis India's flagship pain killer medicine, has become the largest selling domestic drug with sales of more than Rs 11 crore (Rs 110 million) in March 2008, displacing Pfizer India's cough and cold syrup Corex, which had sales of Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 million). Cipla, on the other hand, maintained its leadership position as the largest domestic pharmaceutical company edging out Ranbaxy Laboratories with a market share of 5.24 per cent.
Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw allowed 454 petitions moved by various pharma and healthcare majors, like Pfizer, Glenmark, Procter and Gamble and Cipla, challenging the government's March 10 notification banning the FDCs, saying the decision was taken by the Centre without following procedure prescribed in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
The Delhi High Court on Friday stayed the ban on some fixed dose combination (FDC) drugs of Glaxo SmithKline, Wockhardt and Laboratories Griffon but said action against their sale could be taken in the absence of valid sale and marketing licence.
Fixed-dose combinations are medicines that come mixed in a certain proportion.
Industry demands the basic customs duty on all steel imports to be raised to 25%
'It's very expensive for a girl to become an actress. I remember I was nominated at all the award shows for Tanu Weds Manu, and conscientiously, like a new actress, I attended all of them and I was bankrupt by the end of it! I had to find a costume stylist, a hair stylist, a makeup stylist...!' Ronjita Kulkarni/Rediff.com gets inside Swara Bhaskar's mind.