New Delhi : The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has issued notifications fixing the retail price of a total of 302 new drugs and revising the ceiling prices of a total of 898 drugs based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) revision during the fiscal year 2021-22. It has raised demand notices for overcharged receipts to the tune of Rs. 2.15 crore during the month of March, 2022.
During the year, the ceiling prices were fixed for eight drugs under para 19, 4 & 6 of the Drug (Prices Control) Order. While the Para 19 deals with fixation of ceiling price of a drug under certain extraordinary circumstances, for the public interest, while Para 4 & 6 deals with the calculation of ceiling price of a scheduled formulation and ceiling price of a schedules formulation in case of no reduction in price due to absence of competition, respectively.
Out of the 302 drugs for which retail prices were fixed during the year, 56 were during the month of March, 2022.
During the month, the Authority has revised the ceiling price of a total of 898 formulations based on the WPI, including 874 scheduled formulations which were fixed under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), 2015, while 15 were ceiling prices with special features and nine were scheduled formations which were fixed under NLEM, 2011.
On the basis of monitoring and enforcement activities carried out by the enforcement division of the NPPA, 90 preliminary notices have been issued. It has also received an amount of Rs. 18.65 lakh in three cases towards the overcharged amount.
Of the demand notices issued for overcharged receipts during the month, around Rs. 13.87 lakh was under DPCO 1995 and Rs. 2.01 crore was under DPCO 2013, said the monthly report of Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP).
According to a recent document from the DoP, the NPPA has fixed the ceiling prices of 886 scheduled formulations under NLEM, 2015, till March 23, 2022, of which almost 60 formulations has seen reduction of above 40 per cent in maximum prices, while 244 formulations saw a reduction of less than or equal to five per cent to maximum price.
Around 26 formulations saw reduction of 35-40 per cent of prices, while 46 saw reduction of 30-35 per cent. Around 141 formulations saw price reduction of five to 10 per cent, while 105 formulations experienced 10-15 per cent reduction with respect to maximum price. Another 101 formulations have seen 15-20 per cent price reduction, and 94 formulations witnessed 20-25 per cent price reduction.
Till March 23, the NPPA has fixed the retail price of 1,817 new drugs under DPCO, 2013, while it has capped the trade margin of non-scheduled formulations of 42 anti-cancer medicines under trade margin rationalisation approach as a pilot for proof of concept. Under this, prices of more than 500 brands of medicines were reduced up to 90 per cent, said Mansukh Mandaviya, minister for chemical and fertilisers, recently in the Lok Sabha.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP), which has seen addition of 45 new Kendras, the DoP has registered sales of Rs. 81.26 crore under the maximum retail price value, while providing savings to the tune of Rs. 488 crore to the common man during the month of March, 2022. The total number of PMBJP Kendras has gone up to 8,610 as on March 31, 2022, and the product basket is around 1616 medicines and 250 surgical products.
