Decision on drug pricing policy likely to finalize on Sept 27

27 Sep 2012 Evaluate

The long-awaited new pricing formula for essential drugs is likely to be finalized as the Group of Ministers (GoM) chaired by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar is meeting today, but it might seek some more time from Supreme Court to finalize and draft its recommendations. This would be the fifth meeting of the panel. In the last meeting, the GoM had agreed to study extensively on the pricing strategies that the emerging countries like Mexico, South Africa, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka followed for essential medicines and before finalizing the policy on drug pricing in India.

The Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma had confirmed that the group has made progress in formulating the policy. Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers Srikant Jena had also claimed that it had received approval for the inclusion of 348 drugs in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM).

While only about 72 bulk drugs and formulations are currently controlled by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). If the centre approves the formula, medicine prices are likely to drop by an average of 20%, based on weighted average and brings in 348 medicines under price control. And, about 30% of the pharmacy market is expected to come under the price control as against the present 18%. This calls for 10-12% of revenue loss for the essential medicines’ industry.

The domestic medicine market is estimated to be at about Rs 65,000 crore annually. As per the new proposed policy, the price control will be applicable on imported drugs also. The present cost-plus pricing mechanism of medicines allows cap on prices of imported drugs based on their landed cost declared by the company and the imported drugs are enjoying advantage over the domestically manufactured ones as the regulator does not have the wherewithal to cross check the landed cost.

The UPA government had failed to pass price control of essential drugs in its previous term and last year it came up with a draft of National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy 2011 through the Department of Pharmaceuticals. However, the policy was laying unapproved since ministries of health and chemicals and fertilizers deferred in opinion.

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