Medical and sales representatives body terms UCPMP an exercise in vain

The Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives’ Association of India (FMRAI), a representative body of sales promotion employees in India, has called the newly notified Uniform Code for Pharmaceuticals Marketing Practices (UCPMP) an exercise in vain.

Terming the new code as ‘old wine in new bottle’, the FMRAI said that while the UCPMP provides for complaints made by an individual to be escalated from an industry-centric ethical committee to an apex committee, there is no clarity on how the company alleged to have broken rules would be penalised.

“There are no specific penal provisions in the code for unethical marketing by the companies,” the body said.

“Instead of making the UCPMP guidelines statutory, the newly notified code assures to constitute an Apex Committee for Pharma Marketing Practices (ACPMP) to be headed by the secretary, department of pharmaceuticals, a joint secretary and a finance officer. The path to reach the Apex Committee, however, remains complex and obscure,” the body said in its official statement.

The body also alleged certain discrepancies with regards to the distribution of informational and educational articles allowed under the code. “While the code allows informational and educational items, in the form of calendars, diaries and other items like books and dummy devices worth Rs 1,000 but without any time limit,” the body said.

“This stands in contravention to Article 194(R) of the IT Act, which says that only promotional inputs worth Rs 20,000 can be given in a single year,” FMRAI added.

The FMRAI had in 2021, lodged a case in the Supreme Court of India to make the UCPMP a statutory law. The Apex Court had then directed the government of India to submit a response. The government followed by forming a High-Powered Committee (HPC) under the chairmanship of Dr. Vinod K. Paul, member (health), Niti Aayog.

“Till date, no one has any clue as to what the said committee has done. In the meantime, freebies offered by the companies continue to flow freely in the market,” the FMRAI alleged in its statement.

Calling the UCPMP, 2024 an effort to obfuscate the real issue, the FMRAI alleged that discrepancies in the new code vindicate FMRAI’s demand for making statutory provisions for unethical marketing practices by pharmaceutical companies.

“In the absence of any statutory provisions, the current Code shall remain a toothless tiger and can be used to legitimise the various questionable promotional activities of the pharma companies,” the body added.