Medical Council guidelines bar doctors from taking freebies from firms

Industry insiders feel this is a step towards implementing and codifying the Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices

Doctors will now have to prescribe generic drugs mandatorily, says the new regulations from the National Medical Commission (NMC). At the same time, the NMC has cracked down on registered medical practitioners (RMPs) receiving freebies from healthcare establishments or pharma companies. Moreover, for the first time ever NMC guidelines restricted doctors from speaking on subjects beyond their area of expertise on any public platform including social media. 

NMC in its regulations said that all doctors ‘must’ prescribe generic drugs, and failing which they will be penalised. Even their licence to practice may be suspended for a period. The NMC issued the 'Regulations Relating to Professional Conduct of Registered Medical Practitioners’ recently on August 2.

It says, “Every RMP should prescribe drugs using generic names written legibly and prescribe drugs rationally, avoiding unnecessary medications and irrational fixed-dose combination tablets.”

Industry insiders feel this is a step towards implementing and codifying the Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP). 
“At the moment the UCPMP is a voluntary set of guidelines preventing pharma companies from giving freebies to doctors, but it falls upon pharma associations to enforce the code,” said a senior executive of a pharma firm. 

Another person who is also a member of a pharma lobby group said that the firms self-regulate themselves.