NPPA caps prices of 31 essential drugs

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on Saturday announced price curbs on 31 essential medicines, including anti-cancer drugs and antibiotics, effecting price reductions ranging from 1.5 per cent to 35 per cent.

NPPA has notified ceiling prices of 8 scheduled formulations of Schedule-I, revised ceiling prices of 23 scheduled formulations of Schedule-I and fixed retail prices of 7 formulations under the Drugs (Price Control) Amendment Order, 2016.

NPPA, which regularly caps prices of essential medicines listed under the National List of Essential Medicines as per the Drug Price Control Order, is also looking at fixing prices of certain essential medical devices in the near future.

NPPA fixes prices of essential medicines according to a calculation based on a weighted average of the same medicine sold by different companies, with an added margin. For non-essential medicines, it allows companies to hike prices by 10 per cent on the basis of WPI inflation.

NPPA fixed the prices of eight medicines, including anti-cancer drug Imatinib, the price of which has been fixed at Rs72.03 per capsule. Fluoxetine, which is used to treat depression and other psychiatric conditions has also seen a price cap of Rs3.68 per tablet. Antibiotics Azithromycin and Nitrofurantoin, anti-viral Ganciclovir, cardiac medicine Propranolol and antacid Omeprazole have all seen price caps under the notification by the authority.

The essential medicines list has over 800 formulations under it and more are likely to be added.

However, pharmaceutical manufacturers more often try to circumvent NPPA's price controls by rebranding the product with minor changes in the chemical formula and sell it as a new product that is not under price control while at the same time withdrawing existing stocks from retailers.

NPPA has so far made claims of over Rs4,950 crore from erring pharma companies, but has so far been able to recover less than Rs380 crore, owing to litigations.