Indian Pharma regulator cuts prices of 43 drug formulations

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) today announced a downward revision in the prices of 43 drug formulations, including some that are already under price control, taking the list of medicines under the Drug Pricing Control Order 2013, to 384.

These drugs include formulations used to treat infections and gastro-intestinal disorders, a few vaccines, and commonly used antibiotic drugs such as Ciprofloxacin HCl, Cloxacillin and Rifampicin, which will now be cheaper by up to 50 per cent.

With the government's latest move to make more essential medicines affordable to economically weaker sections of the population, price control now covers up to 30 per cent of drugs sold in the country.

However, the 15 September order cutting prices of 43 drug formulations would result in a combined revenue loss of around Rs170 crore for the industry, according to industry body AIOCD Pharmasofttech AWACS.

Industry officials say prices in the country are already among the lowest in the world and the wide-ranging government-imposed price reductions will hit the industry hard.

The revenue impact for Ranbaxy and Cipla is expected to be around Rs55 crore and Rs46 crore, respectively. Cadila Healthcare and Pfizer may see their revenue decline by around Rs20 crore and Rs13 crore, respectively.

With the price caps, 10 tablets of Ranbaxy's Ciprofloxacin brand - Cifran 500 mg which retails at Rs98 will now cost around Rs38.60. Likewise Cipla's brand Ciplox 500 will be cheaper by over 60 per cent.

Besides antibiotics, BCG vaccine and few cardiovascular drugs such as frusemide and Enalpril Maleate will also cost less now.

"This is a straight-forward, most predictable, overdue action which has been done by us," the official at the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) said, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The NPPA is drawing up a list of mass consumption, essential life-saving drugs which it thinks should be included in the essential medicines list, said a senior official at the pricing authority on Friday.

The recommendations will be sent to the health ministry by mid-October, he said.

The authority, in July, had also capped the prices of more than 100 medicines that are not part of the essential medicines list. The pharmaceutical industry has challenged the move in local courts.

NPPA, meanwhile, has asked all pharmaceutical firms to register themselves under the Integrated Pharmaceutical Database Management System (IPDMS) for online filing of returns for monitoring, fixing and revision of drug prices.

"Availability of reliable database is a necessary pre-requisite for carrying out the functions of price fixation and price revision in respect of scheduled drugs; price fixation in respect of new drugs," National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) said in a notice on its web site.

It further said such a step was also necessary for "monitoring the production and availability of scheduled formulations and the active pharmaceutical ingredients contained in the scheduled formulations, and monitoring the prices of non-scheduled formulations".

NPPA will keep the registration process open till 30 October 2014, after which that data input facility will be made available to all registered users for submission of online reports in respect of form II, III and V under DPCO 2013.

Online filing of returns has to be done under the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) 2013, it added.

This is being done as "the objective of the DPCO 2013 is that the government should in due course come out with an appropriate mechanism of obtaining market-based data related to drugs," NPPA said.