-The Indian Express Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants doctors to prescribe generic medicines over branded ones. KAUNAIN SHERIFF M answers key questions on the pricing of drugs and beyond. * What exactly has Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on generic drugs? Speaking in Surat on April 17, the Prime Minister referred to the Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP), which aims to provide cheaper medical drugs to the people. “In the coming days,...

-TheWeek.in In a major decision that is likely to have wide-ranging repercussions, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has cancelled the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration of Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), barring it from receiving foreign funds. PHFI is a public-private initiative that aims to strengthen training, research and policy development in public Health. The NGO was launched by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2006. The...

-The Telegraph Chandigarh: The chief ministers of neighbouring Punjab and Haryana have agreed to cooperate on action against sex determination centres, which are illegal, and female foeticide. Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh of the Congress today responded to a Twitter appeal from his Haryana counterpart, Manohar Lal Khattar of the BJP, and ordered the Punjab Health department and police to launch a crackdown on sex determination centres operating in Punjab. "I appeal to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Regulatory efforts to get doctors in India to prescribe medicines only through their generic names, initiated about 15 years ago, will need to overcome legal challenges and resistance from sections of doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, experts said. Senior pharmacologists and industry analysts have also said it will be misleading to presume that prescriptions with generic names will automatically translate into lower medicine bills for patients as studies...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A patients' advocacy organisation today urged the Union Health ministry to provide free prophylaxis transfusions to an estimated 12,000 to 13,000 children with haemophilia across the country to reduce their long-term risk of developing joint inflammation and damage. The Haemophilia Federation of India, in a petition submitted to the ministry, said many international haemophilia treatment guidelines recommend prophylaxis in affected children, which can help prevent crippling damage to...