New Delhi, Sept. 24 -- The Centre plans to review how retail and wholesale drug licences are issued and, for the first time, is mulling an indicative ratio based on factors such as population, disease burden and existing licence density, according to two government officials and documents reviewed by Mint. The move could bring greater uniformity in drug licensing across states and curb misuse of wholesale licences for retail sales.

Currently, the Drugs Rules, 1945, do not prescribe numerical limits or demographic criteria for issuing these licences, leaving state licensing authorities (SLAs) with a broad discretion, resulting in wide variations in licensing density. The proposed framework could replace this with a more need-based approac...