New Delhi, July 03: In a bid to give much-needed breather to lakhs of asthma patients as well pharma majors like Cipla, India has sought exemption for ozone-depleting choloroflurocarbons (CFC) based metered-dose inhalers (MDI) under Montreal Protocol for 2010.
The exemption request has come after five drug companies including Sun Pharma, Cadila, Midas and Cipla expressed their inability to switch-over from CFC based asthma inhalers to non-CFC based inhalers by the target period of 2009, citing financial and technical reasons, environment officials said.
Although India fully phased out CFC by September last year, it is finding difficult in doing so with the MDI inhalers which needs CFCs as propellants.
The new CFC free MDIs use HFA (Hydro Fluoro Alkane) as the propellant and are almost 20 per cent more expensive than the conventional ones.
India, at the Medical Technical Options Committee of Ozone Secretariat, recently sought at least 350 tonnes of CFC to be used for manufacturing MDI inhalers which are cheaply available to the ever growing number of asthma and bronchitis patients in the country.
The final decision in the matter will be taken in November when the Conference of Parties meet.
For this year, India’s CFC producers including SRF, Chemplast and Gujarat Flouro Chemicals were allowed to sell no more than 825 tonnes of CFCs for MDI production, comprising 690 tonnes of new production and 135 tonnes reprocessed from existing stock.
All 160 signatory countries under Montreal Protocol had agreed to 2010 as the deadline for a 100 per cent CFC-free world.
-Agencies