The domestic drug industry has expressed serious concern over the central government's decision to make it mandatory to carry a barcode on every medicine pack meant for exports from July 1.
The Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) has pulled up the company secretaries of two telecom companies whose names have been mentioned in the Comptroller and Auditor General's (CAG's) report on the controversial allotment of airwaves. The two officials named in the report are Hari Nair, representing Swan Telecom, and Vidyadhar Chakradeo, the company secretary of Loop Telecom.
The numbers are the highest ever in the history of domestic drug discovery initiatives triggered by companies such as Dr Reddy's and Ranbaxy over a decade ago.
The Drugs Controller General of India, the apex drug regulator, has included a new clause in the trial approval letters, making these firms also accountable for any possible adverse event.
The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), the apex drug regulator, may soon ban the production and sale of three medicines in the country. The drugs - cisapride, phenylpropanolamine (PPA) and human placenta extracts - have been controversial medicines for their alleged adverse reactions for several years now.
The eight-member expert committee, which is in charge of revising NLEM, plans inclusion of new drugs to the list and also do away with the current practice of including only specific strengths of medicines in NLEM.
Godrej Agrovet Ltd, the agri-business arm of leading conglomerate Godrej Ltd, plans to enter the dairy farming business. The company is in talks with at least two leading Israeli dairy farm technology providers.
The first-ever study conducted by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on cancer medicines has found huge price variations among different brands of same medicines sold in the country.
The structure and the exact mandate of the high-level committee set up to probe the alleged financial irregularities related to the conduct of the Commonwealth Games 2010 remain unclear even a week after the setting up of the panel was announced.
The studies, independently initiated by international non-governmental-organization PATH and Indian Council of Medical Research for GSK and Merck vaccines respectively, were called off early this year after six deaths were reported among the girls who were administered these vaccines in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh.
Several international insurance firms that operate in India through joint ventures exercise control over them, despite having only a 26 per cent stake. This is the maximum permissible foreign investment.
Says sector has grievance redress mechanism.
The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, which regulates the prices of medicines, has identified around 70 anti-cancer drugs, including anti-breast cancer medication Letrozole and anti-blood cancer drug Imatinib, for detailed price analysis.
The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) has sought the opinion of various stakeholder departments on the need for further amendments to the patent law to introduce some of the controversial provisions that were kept out during the previous amendment to the Indian Patent Act five years ago.
The Planning Commission has decided that approvals for all social sector projects undertaken by various non-government organisations, normally outside the purview of CAG, will come with the rider that they will be subject to audit, if required.
The Union ministry of chemicals and fertilisers has initiated a move to bring all essential medicines sold in the country under a price cap.
The Competition Commission of India, the country's fair trade watchdog, which turned functional less than a year ago, busy these days.
Piramal Healthcare is planning a string of acquisitions in the biotech space in the US, Europe and Canada in the next two to three years.
Pune-based Serum Institute of India will soon become the second company to get manufacturing approval for a vaccine for the H1N1 virus (swine flu) . The company's intra-nasal swine flu vaccine is expected to get regulatory clearance by the month-end, health ministry officials said.
An increase in the number of outsourcing deals between domestic drug companies and pharmaceutical multinationals has triggered huge capacity expansion programmes in the drug manufacturing sector.