India's health ministry is clamping down on the country's burgeoning and increasingly confusing market for fixed dose combination drugs, limiting the tendency for manufacturers to formulate approved drugs in seemingly irrational combinations. The ministry is making it clear that the Drugs Controller General of India must have approved as 'new drugs' not only the components of combinations but also the combinations themselves.
There have been several instances of state drug authorities issuing licences for new drugs including FDCs without the prior approval of the Drugs Controller according to a Parliamentary Committee report earlier this year