This step has been taken after Government of India (GoI) through its notification dated March 10, 2016, prohibited the manufacture for sale, sale and distribution of fixed dose combination of Chlopheniramine Maleate + Codeine Syrup with immediate effect. Shares of Pfizer were 5.19% lower at Rs 1,827.75 on BSE in the morning trade.
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India has banned USA pharmaceutical drug giant Pfizer from selling Corex cough syrup.
Pfizer said it believed Corex had a “well-established efficacy and safety profile in India for more than 30 years”, without elaborating. Pfizer said that it would no longer sell Corex cough syrup in India after regulators determined that it posed a possible health risk to humans, according to Reuters. In 2014, fixed dose combinations made up almost 50 percent of all the drugs that were sold in India.
Anonymous sources have reported that two of the drugs that will be banned are cough syrups, Phensedyl and Corex, which are codeine-based. Corex, which is relatively less popular, is sold by Pfizer Inc.
Phensedyl, made by United States drugmaker Abbott Laboratories, accounts for about a third of the Indian cough syrup market, and its sales are estimated to make up more than 3% of Abbott’s $1 billion India revenue.
Sharma added that the ban will go into effect “in a few days” but did not provide any details on the banned medicines.
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Pfizer, in a statement, said that the ban on Corex cough syrup could hit the firm’s revenue and profit as Corex brought at least $26.29 million in the period of nine months that ended December 2015.
