To make medicines affordable for large section of the population, the government has reduced prices of 10 drugs and has brought 8 more under its control. Drug price regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has cut prices of 10 drugs including of anti-coagulant enoxaparin and anti- epilepsy drug carbamazepine by 4.8 to 23.3 per cent. The regulator has also brought 8 new medicines like paracetamol and antibiotics like cefadroxil and cefazolin under the price control ambit for the first time.
NPPA fixed the ceiling prices of 18 more drugs in its 36th meeting held on 14th September, effectively government has now brought in 467 medicines under the price control and there are a total of around 900 drugs in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2015.
The government currently fixes the prices of essential drugs based on the simple average of all medicines in a particular therapeutic segment, having sales of more than 1 per cent and also monitors the maximum retail prices (MRP) of all the drugs and companies are allowed to hike prices of non-scheduled drugs by up to 10 per cent in a year.
Last month, Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar has said that the government is mulling providing more than 50 essential drugs, including those used in treatment of cancer and AIDS, at cheaper rates to a large section of the population. NPPA set up in 1997 has been entrusted with the task of fixation/revision of prices of pharma products, enforcement of provisions of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order and monitoring prices of controlled and decontrolled drugs.
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