Pharma companies are not likely to get respite anytime soon, as the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has brought prices of another 43 essential medicines to treat diseases like tuberculosis or heart ailments under a control regime, even though the Delhi High Court asked the Centre and the pharmaceutical companies to resolve the drug pricing issue. Last month, 56 drug formulations were brought under the price control regime.
The 43 drugs that were brought under the control regime include the BCG vaccine (which also falls under the public-funded Universal Immunisation Programme), antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin HCl and rifampicin (used to treat tuberculosis), and cardiovascular medicines like acetyl salicylic acid. Besides, the NPPA has also revised prices of 20 medicines. The move is likely to impact the major drug makers such as Ranbaxy, Cipla, Cadila Health, and Lupin.
Presently the government directly caps prices of 348 formulations at the average price of all medicines in a particular segment with at least one per cent market share. Bringing more medicines under the price control regime has resulted in friction between the Government and the pharmaceutical industry, resulting in litigation. In July NPPA had brought prices of over 100 non-scheduled drugs under price control as per paragraph 19 of Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO). Organization of Pharmaceutical Producers of India’s (OPPI) had opposed the move to fix caps on the prices of over 100 drugs which were non-scheduled formulations and lie outside the scope of National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM).