Drug companies in India will be prohibited from handing out cash or gifts or stand-alone entertainment to doctors under a code of ethics proposed by industry associations to govern the marketing of medicines.

Pharma giant Piramal Healthcare Limited plans to strengthen its diagnostic services. It will network its diagnostic centres to provide customers the flexibility of visiting any of these centres for getting the tests done.

Pure-play global biologics firms have long pleaded with the government for a tighter regulatory framework for approval of biosimilars in India. Companies like Amgen, Biogen and Genentech (now part of Roche) have some of the biggest successes in biological drugs and could be naturally worried about the way copied drugs are approved and sold in India.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh underlined the importance of India and Russia in sustaining global economic recovery and said the two countries have decided to take bilateral trade to a much higher level of USD 20 billion by 2015.