Government Sets Up Three-Member Committee to Review Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices and Its Enforcement

Key facts

• The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) has constituted a three-member committee to examine the effectiveness of the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP), including oversight and enforcement mechanisms to address unethical marketing and measures to improve transparency, accountability and compliance.
• The committee is headed by Niti Aayog member and former AIIMS Delhi Director M Srinivas, with former Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan and Medanta Hospitals Chairman Naresh Trehan as members.
• The committee must submit its recommendations to the DoP within two months of its first meeting, as per the DoP order dated October 22, with the DoP providing secretarial assistance and the committee allowed to consult stakeholders and experts.
• The review follows concerns over the voluntary, industry-led UCPMP notified in 2024, under which pharmaceutical associations had to constitute a five-member Ethics Committee for Pharma Marketing Practices (ECPMP) with appeals to an Apex Committee for Pharma Marketing Practices (ACPMP) headed by the DoP Secretary, but critics said there were no specific penal provisions for violating companies.
• The Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives' Associations of India (FMRAI) had approached the Supreme Court in 2021 seeking to make the UCPMP statutory, after which the government constituted a High-Powered Committee chaired by Niti Aayog member (health) Vinod K Paul.