The practice of medicine stores forcing customers to buy an entire strip of tablets, while the need could be of a smaller quantity, may come to an end soon. The Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) has held the first round of consultation with the senior representatives of the pharma and medical devices industry, to find a solution to prevent companies from forcing consumers to buy entire strips of medicine. Top officials of the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) were also present at the meeting, according to reports.
The Consumer Affairs Ministry has suggested a few solutions, including the exploration of new technologies for packaging medicines, to protect consumer interest.
According to reports, a plan to have perforated medicine strips with each segment of the strip mentioning the manufacturing and expiry dates has been proposed. This will help the consumer to get the complete information even when they need to buy only a few tablets instead of the entire strip.
Another option being explored is printing scannable QR codes either on the medicine strips or on each tablet or capsule “depending on the viability.”
The first round of consultations was held with senior representatives of the pharma and medical devices industry, and it was attended by top officials of the DCGI as well.
“We’ve suggested adopting perforation technology to cut the strip and also to print manufacturing and expiry date on each strip and even use QR code. The main focus is also to see that there is not much additional cost on consumers,” an official was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
The printing QR code on each tablet may cost less than 10 paise, the report said citing representatives of the industry.
On the other hand, the chemists have no problem in cutting strips of the fast-moving medicines. In case slow moving medicines and drugs, they insist on consumers buying an entire strip because pharmaceutical companies or distributors refuse to take back the unsold medicines with cut strips in case they expire, news agency PTI reported quoting an industry source.
