-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Pharma companies may have to cough up huge penalties for unethical and illegal practices like offering freebies, gifts and foreign trips to doctors for pushing the sales of their products. The government is set to make mandatory the uniform code of conduct for pharmaceutical marketing practices, which have so far been voluntary. The department of pharmaceuticals (DoP) is working on a draft which will curb unethical...

-The Indian Express Indian healthcare providers need to get serious about infection control. A deadly strain of bacterium has doubled its resistance to last-resort antibiotics within a year, according to the report “State of the World’s Antibiotics, 2015”. By an estimate, antimicrobial resistance — the ability of bugs to outwit antibiotics — will claim two million lives in India by 2050, a fifth of the total. India is under pressure to curb...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: For the first time ever, some of India's biggest pharmaceutical companies, cutting across their respective associations and representing nearly half the Rs 93,000 crore market, have come together to push for ethical marketing practices to clean up the industry's image. The forum, comprising of 40 to 50 domestic and MNC firms, had its first closed-door meeting on October 14. It has made a "voluntary and moral commitment"...

-The Times of India NOIDA: The National Cancer Institute (NCI), a unit of US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS), has observed that India shares a large proportion of the global cancer burden, with rising mortality rates. The situation can improve with dissemination of scientific information among the general populace, claimed NCI officials. India has around 1.8 million people suffering from cancer, with patients of breast, cervical and oral cancers topping...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Public health experts fear that a new health ministry notification that says pictorial health warnings must cover 85 per cent of tobacco packs from next April may be a "face-saving exercise". The September 24 notification was due six months ago and seems aimed at allaying the anger of Rajasthan High Court, which had asked the government to explain its delay in introducing the 85 per cent warnings, health...