Supreme Court lifts ban on Painkiller Saridon

September 18: The Supreme Court has allowed the sale of Saridon and two other drugs in an order passed by it on Monday. Apart from Saridon, permission to sell GlaxoSmithKline’s Piriton, Juggat Pharma’s Dart and another drug was also given. The top court’s order comes on a petition filed by the drug makers. While lifting the stay, the court sought the centre’s reply on petitions against the order to ban fixed-dose combination or FDCs manufactured before 1988.

The apex court’s ruling comes after the September 13 order by the Ministry of Health that banned the manufacture for sale or distribution of 328 fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs. The banned medicines included brands like Piramal Healthcare’s Saridon, Alkem Laboratories’ Taxim AZ and Macleods Pharma’s Panderm Plus cream.

The country’s drug advisory body, the Drug Technical Advisory Board or DTAB, has said there is no therapeutic justification for the ingredients in these drugs and they must be banned in public interest. Fixed dose combination drugs, popularly known as FDCs, are medicines that are a cocktail of two or more drugs sold by the Indian pharmaceutical industry. Some health experts alleged quacks often prescribe FDCs as they are unable to pinpoint the exact cause of an illness and carpet-bomb patients with combination doses, in the hope that one of the drugs would work.

A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Indu Malhotra issued notice to the Centre and sought its reply on the plea filed by some drug makers and pharma associations. The drug companies contended that the report of the Drug Technical Advisory Board on the basis of which the ban was brought about was not given to them.