Health Ministry bans Saridon & 327 other drugs due to health risk

September 13: On Wednesday, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare banned the manufacture, sale and distribution of 327 fixed dose combination drugs along with Saridon with immediate effect. Besides, it has also restricted the manufacture, sale or distribution of six FDCs subject to certain conditions, an official statement said. The banned medicines include brands like Piramal’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.

Government sources said the move means that around 6,000 medicine brands belonging to different companies and with a combined market size of Rs 2,000-2,500 crore may soon vanish from the drug market in the country. The DTAB recommended that it is necessary to prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of these FDCs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 in the larger public interest.