Centre seeks to strengthen, restructure drug pricing order committee
Centre fixes price of drugs for diabetes, hypertension, multivitaminsThe primary task of the committee is to strike a balance between pricing and availability of essential medicines, while offering incentives to the industry to foster growth and exports. Prices of drugs in India are regulated as per provisions of Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, by the NPPA, under the aegis of the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), that fixes the ceiling price of scheduled medicines.
It also fixes the retail price of ‘new drugs’ for existing manufacturers of scheduled formulations."The committee has always been concerned about ensuring that drug pricing remains at stable position so that it does not affect the consumers. In the past couple of months, there have been some revisions in the pricing and the committee keeps on holding meetings before making such announcements.
If there is a requirement of expansion of the committee that will happen," stated another official.Also Read: Heart disease, diabetes drugs to cost less as govt cuts essential medicine pricesThe DPCO lists 680 scheduled drug formulations spread across 27 therapeutic groups. It states that while fixing the ceiling price of scheduled formulations and retail price of new drugs, 16% of price to retailer as a margin to retailer shall be allowed.
Under the DPCO, drug manufacturers can have retail margin of 6 to 10% for branded medicines and 8 to 15% for generic medicines. But the manufacturer is not given any obligations regarding trade margins.The objective of the DPCO is to ensure availability of essential and life-saving and prophylactic medicines of good quality at reasonable prices.
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