New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday stayed proceedings in all high courts against the ban on 344 fixed-dose- combination (FDC) drugs.
In January, the Centre had filed an appeal against a December 2016 ruling of the Delhi high court quashing the March 2016 notification.
An FDC contains two or more active drug ingredients in a fixed ratio of doses. The Centre had banned 344 FDC drugs on 10 March 2016 citing health risks and lack of therapeutic justification.
The ban covered about 6,000 brands and major pharma houses including Pfizer Ltd, Wockhardt Ltd, Alkem Laboratories Ltd, Cipla Ltd, Sanofi India Ltd, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. The ban was imposed following a report by a six-member committee headed by Chandrakant Kokate, vice chancellor of KLE University, Karnataka.
The Kokate panel, which submitted its report on 20 January 2015, had termed 963 FDCs “irrational”, posing health threats.
Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw of the Delhi high court had quashed the notification, holding that the government had failed to consult statutory authorities like the Drug Testing Advisory Board and the Drugs Consultative Committee for the ban. The court, however, did not rule on whether FDC drugs are harmful to consumers.
