Critically evaluate the institutional mechanisms under UCPMP 2024 for ensuring ethical interactions between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals.

The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) notified the Uniform Code for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP) 2024 on 12 March 2024. It replaced the voluntary 2015 code and was amended in September 2025 [2]. It builds a firmer institutional structure, but it still rests on self-regulation without statutory force.

Institutional mechanisms and their strengths

• Clear prohibition: companies may not give gifts, monetary benefits or hospitality to doctors or their family members [1].
• Ethics architecture: companies must appoint Ethics Officers. Ethics Committees for Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (ECPMPs) hear complaints [2].
• Two-tier adjudication with appeal to DoP: the government now has the final say. Under the old code, DoP simply forwarded complaints to industry associations [1][3].
• Transparency tools: companies must self-declare compliance and disclose spending on conferences, seminars and workshops. Independent, random or risk-based audits can check them [1][4].

Weaknesses

• Self-policing persists: ECPMPs are set up within industry associations. This means peers still judge their own members [2][3].
• Weak penalties: the Code's own sanctions, such as a corrective media statement, are mild. Heavier action depends on "existing laws" [1].
• No statutory backing: the Code is an executive instrument, not an Act. A Supreme Court petition by medical representatives' federations sought a mandatory code [3].
• One-sided coverage: the Code binds only the giver. Doctors who accept gifts answer to State Medical Councils under the 2002 professional conduct regulations, and no rule links the two complaint routes [5].
• Honesty-based compliance: self-declarations are only as reliable as the companies filing them, and audits are discretionary [1].

Verdict: UCPMP 2024 is real progress on structure, especially the government appellate role, but its enforcement lacks teeth.

The government itself recognises these gaps. On 23 October 2026 DoP set up the Srinivas Committee to recommend "regulatory/statutory measures and a legal framework" [6]. The way forward:

• Give the Code statutory backing within an existing law, with graded fines.
• Require DoP to refer proven violations to the National Medical Commission and State Medical Councils.
• Include patient groups in the Committee's consultations.

Together, these steps would make the Code's ethics enforceable, protect patients' trust in doctors, and serve the right to health under Article 21.