India planning to extend pricing control to more drugs

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India planning to extend pricing control to more drugs

Generics/General | Posted 01/08/2014 0 Post your comment

India is thought likely to increase the number of drugs it considers ‘essential’ and therefore for which it controls the maximum retail price in the country.

The government, via the introduction of a new Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) in May 2013, already regulates the prices of 348 ‘essential drugs’ included in the country’s National List of Essential Medicines [1].

A panel convened by India’s health ministry met for the first time on 24 June 2014 to discuss adding more drugs to this list, thus subjecting them to price caps in order to improve affordability.

The move is hoped would improve affordable for ‘essential drugs’ in a country where 70% of the 1.2 billion people live on less than US$2 a day and less than 20% are covered by health insurance.

Generics companies in the country are increasingly being caught between a rock and a hard place, as companies requesting to stop production of ‘essential drugs’ have been denied by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). The DPCO gives the NPPA the right to do this when the company’s market share of the drug is more than 1%.

Reference
1. GaBI Online - Generics and Biosimilars Initiative. India introduces new drug pricing control [www.gabionline.net]. Mol, Belgium: Pro Pharma Communications International; [cited 2014 Aug 1]. Available from: www.gabionline.net/Policies-Legislation/India-introduces-new-drug-pricing-control

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Source: Economic Times India, Reuters