Coming Up: Case on outlawed FDCs

Patient advocacy groups and the pharmaceutical industry will be watching the fixed dose combination (FDC) medicine case, scheduled to come up in the Supreme Court this fortnight. An FDC combines two ormore medicines in one product and questions were raised on the rationale for such drugs: Whether companies were driven by scientific or commercial reasons to develop such medicines. Subsequently, the Centre banned 344 FDCs. And after many legal twists and turns, the final case comes up for hearing. The outcome will be important as the government increasingly exercises greater regulatory supervision on medicines in public interest.