-The Times of India MUMBAI: Now, you will need a doctor's prescription for buying common antibiotics, certain pain-relievers, anxiety-busters and sleeping pills. Retail Chemists have started asking for prescriptions while dispensing 46 medicines across therapies-these cover over 7,000 formulations in the domestic market. The sale restrictions apply to popular antibiotics, best-selling cough syrups like Corex and certain anti-tuberculosis medicines, all of which used to be easily available over the counter. The new rules...

-IPS News PESHAWAR, Pakistan- They are contraband, yet a large number of Pakistanis have come to depend on drugs made in India and smuggled into Pakistan. Patients as well as doctors say these are cheap and effective, even as law enforcers look the other way. The two countries do not have a trade agreement on drugs, but markets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north of Pakistan do brisk business in India-made...

-Down to Earth The free medicine scheme in Rajasthan may benefit Congress Of the many poll sops that Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot doled out in the past two years, the one scheme that seems to have struck the right chord with voters is the initiative to give free essential medicines at government healthcare facilities. The Mukhyamantri Nishulk Dava Yojna, launched in 2011, has offered some hope to the incumbent Congress government,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The price caps imposed by the Indian government on 348 drugs earlier this year have created only an illusion of control, keeping many medicines for conditions ranging from asthma to diabetes and heart disease beyond price regulations, experts said today. The price control order issued by the department of pharmaceuticals in May has led to a 22 per cent reduction in the average cost of some 250 medicines,...

-The Economic Times HYDERABAD: Numerous pharmacies - especially those operating on rented space - are shutting down across the country, hurt by a sharp decline in margins after the introduction of a new pricing policy for medicines and intense competition from bigger players. The new Drug Price Control Order (DPCO), which was notified on May 15, has made the prices of some 150 drugs fall steeply. Under this, companies and retailers are...