The National Medical Commission (NMC) has put on hold the new regulations that made it mandatory for doctors to prescribe generic drugs and bar them from accepting gifts from pharma companies or endorsing any drug brands.
The Registered Medical Practitioner (Professional Conduct) Regulations, 2023, were published on August 2.
However, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) and Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) had expressed concern over the NMC making it mandatory to prescribe generic medicines saying this was not feasible because of the uncertainty about their quality.
They also suggested that registered medical practitioners should be allowed to attend conferences sponsored by pharmaceutical companies.
They said the regulation barring doctors from attending conferences sponsored by pharma companies warrants reconsideration and also demanded that associations and organisations should be exempted from the purview of NMC guidelines.