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Following the Health Ministry’s May 28, 2025 circular banning medical representatives from central government hospitals for sales promotion, healthcare leaders have voiced strong support for the move.
Dr. Sujit Paul, Group CEO of Zota Healthcare Ltd sees it as a step toward affordable, unbiased treatment by reducing branded drug marketing’s influence, especially over generic alternatives. Public health expert Dr. Sameer Bhati highlights its alignment with ethical prescribing standards, urging the creation of centralized, regulated platforms to give doctors impartial access to clinical drug data. Both stress the need for systems that prioritize patient care over commercial interests.
According to Dr. Paul, “We are a generic pharmacy that is dedicated to making care affordable. As such, we are cautiously optimistic about the Health Ministry's circular against medical representatives in government hospitals. This may actually have a greater positive impact for patients, by removing bias against equal, but cheaper alternative medications to costly, branded medications. As it stands, medical representatives provide superior marketing for high-cost branded medications, often inflating the cost of treatment unnecessarily. With a restriction on medical representatives, we may start to see practitioners rely more on clinical evidence and cost areas in which generic medicines excel. This aligns precisely with our mission of providing affordable quality healthcare to all Indians.”
Dr. Paul further adds, “Our recommendation is to develop standardized digital platforms, established by pharmaceutical companies, which provides registries of evidence-based product information, including this information from generic manufacturers. This could be monitored by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to ensure neutrality. In terms of a way forward, pharmacy associations as well as manufacturers of generic medicines, need to collaborate to develop comprehensive databases, as well as other registries. We will be prepared to support efforts such as tailored solutions of this kind, and provide unbiased information regarding generic alternatives to health professionals.”
Dr. Bhati says this circular by the Union Health Ministry moves the healthcare industry another step closer to ethical healthcare delivery aligned with the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP) 2024. Regarding legitimacy, this should bolster the patient experience, with prescriptive decision-making ideally remaining free from any commercial influences, and reflective only on medical merit.”
He concludes, “We will need systems that facilitate access to new drug-pathway data by doctors on a continuing basis, preferably from approved sources, such as one centralized point deemed legitimate by the DCGI. We will also need support from professional medical associational groups to initiate and supply patient care guideline plans that contain clinical information applicable to the evidence base. It is vital that we develop systems that privilege patients over commercial needs. This will position us to reflect on patient needs first as a matter of policy and set a landmark that may change the entire healthcare ecosystem. At the end of the day, it is about the patients and their treatment decisions, based on an objective basis."
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