New Delhi: The parliamentary standing committee on chemicals and fertilisers has pulled up India’s drug pricing regulator for approving a 50% price hike on 11 drug formulations in October, saying the move disproportionately impacts the “poorest of the poor” across the nation.
Expressing “serious concern,” the committee has demanded a detailed explanation from the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).
The NPPA increased the prices of 11 drug formulations by 50% in an order dated October 15, the committee said in a report.
“Admittedly, this was done in response to several applications requesting a price rise to accommodate rising production costs over the years,” it said. However, increasing prices of medicines affect “the whole nation, particularly hard hitting the poorest of the poor,” the report said, adding that NPPA, empowered to monitor and enforce pricing of medicine, “has allowed this situation to prevail.”
The pricing regulator has notified celling prices of 920 essential medicines including oxygen, general anaesthetics and opioids, the panel said.
While selling prices of essential medicines are raised on the basis of changes in the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), NPPA also monitors the pricing to ensure that manufactures do not hike the MRP of the medicine by more than 10% in one year, it pointed out.
The NPPA had increased the prices by invoking Paragraph 19 of the Drug Prices Control Order that gives it the power to fix or change drug prices under certain circumstances. It made the decision, citing that suppliers of some of these formulations had applied for discontinuation of supplies due to unviability. The regulator had said it increased the prices to ensure availability of the 11 drugs, most of which are used as first-line treatment for various conditions including asthma, glaucoma, thalassemia, tuberculosis and mental health disorders.
