New Delhi: In a move to provide relief to patients, India’s drug pricing regulator, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), has proposed slashing the prices of about 15 drugs across the spectrum. They range from life-saving medicines used in treatment of cardiovascular diseases and local anaesthetic agents to a popular dermatological lotion.
After a notification to the effect is issued, anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin, Verapamil for low and high blood pressure, amphotericin injection, an antifungal medication, Lignocaine, a local anaesthetic numbing medication, and calamine lotion used for skin conditions will all get cheaper by 25-30 per cent.
The notification is likely to come soon, following which manufactures not complying with the ceiling prices will be penalised. They will have to deposit the overcharged amount along with 15 per cent interest, failing which criminal action can be initiated against them by NPPA, including cancelling their licence.
The move to reduce prices of 15 medicines is the latest in a series of price cuts that began late 2016 and has led to reduced costs of around 1,450 drugs. All the drugs are part of the revised national List of Essential Medicines (NLEM). In the case of medicines not included in this list, manufacturers can increase the maximum retail price by 10 per cent annually.
“The idea is to make treatment of critical diseases more affordable by bringing down the cost of medicines, which constitute a major part of out-of-pocket expenses,” a source said.
The NPPA had recently announced major price cuts for cancer drugs, up to 86 per cent in some cases, and reduced cardiac stent prices by over 75 per cent, capping the ceiling prices of drug eluting stents (DES) and bioresorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS) at Rs 29,600, and bare metal stents (BMS) at Rs 7,260. Including VAT, these stents are expected to cost Rs 31,080 and Rs 7,623, respectively.
Set up in 1997, NPPA has been entrusted with the task of fixing and revising the prices of pharma products and monitoring of prices of controlled and decontrolled drugs.
