-The Hindu People have to go hungry for paying the medicine bill, says Judge The Union government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it would put in place by mid-November a Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) after the Union Cabinet’s approval. Last week, the Bench asked the government to spell out a time frame within which a new policy would be put in place. On Thursday, Additional Solicitor-General (ASG) Siddarth Luthra told a...

-Live Mint Incidents at Bhopal and Indore highlight irregularities and ethical violations in some trials In 2004, doctors at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC), established exclusively for treating the victims of the 1984 gas leak, recruited unsuspecting survivors for clinical trials without their knowledge or consent; 14 participants died during the course of the trials. Together with the episode in Indore’s Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital (that Mint reported on 10...

-The Indian Express The government’s proposal to price-control certain Drugs will create more problems than it will solve From clothes to cars, prices of consumer products the world over are determined taking into account input costs, margins and competition, popularly called the cost-based pricing system. Departing from this sound, fair, tried and tested principle of commerce, the government’s new drug pricing policy, approved by the Group of Ministers headed by Sharad Pawar,...

-Live Mint The first in a two-part series examining the opaque world of clinical trials in India  A hospital in Indore has been able to get away with unethical medical trials in which 32 people have died over five years, according to the state government. This despite several investigations, a state government ban and Supreme Court strictures—a classic example of the lawless nature of the clinical trial business in India.   Lata Mehra, who...

-Deccan Herald The Supreme Court on Monday expressed concern over the lives of people who, without their knowledge, were subjected to drug clinical trials by pharma companies and sought details of the number of such trials and the deaths and adverse reactions caused by them over the last seven years. “We are concerned with the lives of those who become subjects of clinical trials unknowingly and helplessly,” ta bench of Justices R...