Brand Name Extensions by Pharma May Finally Be Receiving Scrutiny?
Praharsh Gour
On July 6, the Directorate General of Health Services, Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), published a notice inviting comments on the use of brand name extensions by Pharma Companies. This stems from a representation made before the Drugs Consultative Committee alleging that a pharma company was selling different formulations under one brand name with different extensions. However, this problem has been a long-standing one, as explained by Prashant and Dinesh Thakur.
In effect, this notice seems to be towards addressing the problem of one brand name being used for different medicines. Although it may sound surprising, as pointed out in this tweet by Dinesh Thakur and by Murali Neelakantan, Parth Sharma, and Ashish Kulkarni here, this is very much the reality of Indian markets where different drugs with the same brand names are sold in the market. For instance, the brand name Linamac is being used by two companies for selling Lenalidomide (treating cancer) and Linagliptin (for diabetes).
From the notice, it seems like the CDSCO is focusing only on this and not on the other problem of ‘Look Alike Sound Alike’ (LASA) drugs i.e. different drugs being sold under similar spelling, phonetic pronunciation, or packaging. The implication for this problem is obvious: a mix-up of astronomical proportions, where a person might consume, let’s say, a drug used to treat schizophrenia, confusing it for their hypertension drug. As Murali Neelakantan et. al. pointed out in their paper linked above, this is very much possible considering that in the market we have drugs being sold under the brand names Olvance (for treating hypertension) and Oleanz (for treating schizophrenia).
To resolve this menace of same/ similar brand names being used for different formulations, the Supreme Court in the landmark Cadila Healthcare judgement had opined that Drug Regulators should ask for an official search report from the Trade Mark office, while fulfilling their obligation to check against spurious drugs, but the recommendation has not been implemented so far. With this call for comments, hopefully CDSCO will pay heed to this problem and not limit the discussion to drugs with identical brand names, but also consider LASA drugs too and come up with a robust solution for the same.
The deadline for filing the comments is July 17 (which is an abysmally short deadline for comments on such an important issue). Considering that the problem was flagged during the Drugs Consultative Committee on November 17, 2025, and it took the CDSCO almost 8 months to publish this notice, surely a more generous deadline could have been set for the stakeholders to share their comments.
For those interested in sharing comments against this call, I am listing out some important (openly accessible) readings/ sessions that have discussed this issue at length
- The “Doctrine Of Greater Care”: Pharmaceutical Trademarks In India by Aparajita Lath
- Look-alike, sound-alike (LASA) drugs in India by Murali Neelakantan, Parth Sharma, Ashish Kulkarni
- India’s problem — different drugs, identical brand names by Dinesh S Thakur and Prashant Reddy T
- The Monopoly Purple – Colours, Shapes and Sizes in the Pharmaceutical World by Swaraj Barooah and Murali Neelakantan
- Pharmaceutical trademark confusion: Poison Pill or Public Health? By Aparajita Lath
- Drug Doppelgängers: Unveiling the Dangers of Look-Alike, Sound-Alike (LASA) Medications by Aditya Bhargava
- Why did a Rule on Mandatory Prescription of Generic Drugs Fail in India? by Prashant Reddy
- Why Do Prescription Drugs Have Such Crazy Names? By Annalies Winny
- Interview: Risks of Look-Alike, Sound-Alike medicines in India, how to prevent medication errors
- Medication safety for look-alike, sound-alike medicines by the WHO Please click here to view the post on SpicyIP and leave a comment.