Drug ban: P&G to challenge health ministry order on sale of Vicks Action 500 Extra
The company was evaluating all options to challenge the ban. On Tuesday it announced that it had stopped selling the product after regulators banned it citing potential health risks
P&G's Indian business plans to challenge a government order banning its cough-and-cold medicine Vicks Action 500 Extra, according to a report by Moneycontrol. The company had announced on Tuesday that it had stopped selling the product after regulators banned it citing potential health risks. It was evaluating all options to challenge the ban, said the report.
The product is a fixed dose combination of paracetamol, phenylephrine and caffeine, which was banned by the health ministry in a notice issued over the weekend, Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care Ltd informed the stock exchange.
The drug was one of 344 drug combinations including several antibiotics and analgesics that India ordered to be prohibited saying a government-appointed panel of experts had found the combinations lacked "therapeutic justification."
Pharmaceutical companies such as Procter & Gamble (P&G), Abbott Healthcare and Macleods Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday were granted interim relief by the Delhi High Court on the ban of certain combination drugs by the Health Ministry.
After Pfizer's cough syrup 'Corex' was granted interim relief from the ban from the Delhi High Court on Monday, pharmaceutical companies Abbott Healthcare and Macleods Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday too got interim relief from the court which stayed it till March 21.
The court also issued a notice to the Health ministry directing it to file a status report after taking instruction on the findings of the expert committee.
P&G's share price down on Tuesday by 1.51% to Rs 6,035.65 on the BSE.