The Competition Commission of India (CCI) organized a Workshop on ‘Competition Issues in the Pharmaceutical Sector in India’ on August 27, 2021. Dr. Vinod K. Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, delivered the Keynote Address at the Inaugural Session of the workshop. The Inaugural Session was also addressed by Mr Ashok Kumar Gupta, Chairperson, CCI and Prof. K. Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health foundation of India. Mr. S. Ghosh Dastidar, Secretary, CCI, delivered the Welcome Address.
The daylong workshop was conducted by CCI in pursuance of its larger mandate of protecting and promoting competition and fair play in markets, and as a part of its market study for better understanding of the competition landscape in the pharmaceutical sector in India, focusing on the specific realms of the distribution architecture for drugs, trade margins, prevalence of branded generic drugs in India and its implications for competition.
The inaugural session was followed by three technical sessions on i) Pharmaceutical Distribution: Trade Practices and Competition ii) Generic Competition in Indian Pharmaceuticals: Price and Non-Price Issues and iii) Competition in the Pharmaceutical Sector: Role of Regulation and Antitrust. In the first two sessions, stakeholders shared their views on the focus areas of the study. The third session brought together sector experts, antitrust practitioners and regulators to deliberate on the regulatory pathways for promoting competition in the pharmaceutical sector.
Panellists at the workshop included regulators, policymakers, academicians, doctors, representatives of pharmaceutical associations, distribution associations, stockists, pharmacists etc. Over 150 participants attended the workshop.
