FDAnews
www.fdanews.com/articles/73301-india-pledges-regulatory-agency-advertising-reforms

India Pledges Regulatory Agency, Advertising Reforms

June 14, 2005

India's government has pledged to adopt any necessary measures to improve public access to medicines, but officials admit that the country lacks a world-class regulatory system to ensure this adoption. Regardless, senior government officials claim that a national regulator of this type will be functional by year-end 2006.

Meanwhile, as part of the government's attempts to modernise the sector, officials have outlined measures to ban the advertising of prescription drugs on the restricted "Schedule H" list. Officials could also now widen this list to include newly approved products with possible side-effects that are not yet fully evaluated.