Still sought by addicts..........

Indian Regulators Battle Big Pharma Over Cough Syrup Abuse, Reducing Supplies

 Representational image: A police officer displays seized cough syrup bottles at a police station near the Bangladesh border in Amtali area of Tripura July 25, 2008.

 New Delhi: Indian regulators are privately pressuring major drug firms to better police how they sell popular codeine-based cough syrups to tackle smuggling and addiction, a move that is reducing supplies of a medicine doctors say is an effective treatment.

Cipla stopped making the product last year owing to regulatory demands, and US-based Abbott Laboratories and Pfizer have had to reduce batch sizes by up to half, cutting how much medicine their factories can produce.

But they are pushing back against other demands, a Reuters review of correspondence between companies and regulators showed, including selling one batch to only one buyer and printing labels that specify where the drug would be sold.

 Regulators want to make it easier for law enforcement agencies to track cough syrup abuse in the country and bottles smuggled to neighbouring Bangladesh, where it was banned in the 1980s but is still sought by addicts.

Retailers worried about liability from potential abuse by people addicted to the opiate codeine are in some cases refusing to stock the cough syrup, said J S Shinde, president of pharmaceutical lobby group All India Organization of Chemists and Druggists.