The uniform code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices
(UCMP) 2024 also bans any kind of gifting to healthcare professionals and lays out guidelines for redressal of complaints related to breach of the code.

The department of pharmaceuticals has shared a copy of
UCPM with all pharmaceutical associations for strict compliance. The department has directed the associations to form an ethics committee to investigate complaints related to any breach of the code.
Actions suggested for any established breach include asking the entity (company in question) to recover money or items, given in violation of the code, from those concerned, suspending or expelling the entity from the association or referring the matter to the agency or authority of govt that is qualified to act in the matter.

It says the executive head of the company should submit a self-declaration within two months of the end of every financial year to the association for uploading on their website, or directly to the UCMP portal of the department of pharmaceuticals in case he or she is not a member of such a body.
"Pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money on marketing their products. Taking doctors abroad in the name of conferences and workshops, offering them gifts and free drug samples are some of the ways they do it. It must stop as eventually the cost of all this expenditure is passed on to the patient in terms of the high cost of the drugs and medical devices," sird a senior doctor, who was part of the ethics committee of the Medical Council of India (MCI). He, however, added that programmes to train healthcare professionals in newer technologies shouldn't be curtailed in the process.