New Delhi, Sep 17 : The Supreme court on Monday lifted a ban on the manufacture and sale of Piramal's painkiller Saridon and two other drugs - Piriton and Dart - for now.

These drugs were part of the 328 Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) drugs whose manufacture, distribution and sale was banned by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on September 12.

Lifting the ban till the case was disposed, a bench of Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Indu Malhotra sought the Centre's response to the pleas by affected pharmaceutical companies against the order to ban FDCs manufactured before 1988.

The bench is hearing cases on the validity of fixed-dose drug licences.

Questioning the ban, the companies had earlier said that the only reason given in the government's notification was that the combinations had "no therapeutic value".

The Centre's decision to ban 328 FDC drugs had brought around 6,000 medicines on the radar, including very commonly used ones.

The list of such drugs includes Piramal's painkiller Saridon, Macleods Pharma's Panderm Plus skin cream, Alkem Laboratories' antibacterial Taxim AZ and combination diabetes drug Gluconorm PG.

The ban order was, however, hailed by the All India Drug Action Network, which said that the government had taken the right decision as "banned drugs were indeed harmful and not prescribed in medicine textbooks".

 

Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.



New York/Washington (PTI): America’s relationship with both India and Pakistan is “good”, the US State Department has said, asserting that the diplomats are "committed to both nations".

Speaking at a briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said that the US working with both nations is good news for the region and the world, and will promote a beneficial future.

“I would say that our relationship with both nations is as it has been, which is good. And that is the benefit of having a President who knows everyone, talks to everyone, and that is how we can bring differences together in this case. So it's clear that the diplomats here are committed to both nations,” Bruce said.

She was responding to a question on the possibility of increased US assistance to Islamabad in terms of arms sales following Pakistan Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir’s meeting with Trump, and whether this was coming at the cost of Trump's relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Referring to the May conflict between India and Pakistan, Bruce added, “Obviously, we had an experience with Pakistan and India when there was a conflict, one that could have developed into something quite horrible.” 

She said that there was "immediate concern and immediate movement" with Vice President J D Vance, President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in “addressing the nature of what was happening….we described the nature of the phone calls, the work that we did to stop the attacks and to then bring the parties together so we could have something that was enduring."

She also claimed that top leaders in the US were involved in “stopping that potential catastrophe.”

New Delhi has been maintaining that India and Pakistan halted their military actions following direct talks between their militaries without any mediation by the US.

Bruce added that the recent peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan “follows negotiated peace arrangements between Cambodia and Thailand, Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Pakistan, Egypt and Ethiopia and Serbia and Kosovo.” 

Meanwhile, in an interview on Tuesday, Rubio said that “credit goes to” Trump for helping bring several conflicts around the world to an end.

Trump says he wants “to be the President of peace. And so any time we see a conflict where we think we can make a difference, we get involved, and we’ve had good success in that regard. India-Pakistan, Thailand-Cambodia, the peace deal with Azerbaijan and Armenia, just a few days ago,” he said in an interview with ‘Sid and Friends in the Morning’.