Govt releases list of 886 medicines with reduced price tag

New Delhi, Oct 31 (UNI) For the benefit of the common man, the Government today released a list of 886 medicines in certain categories for which the major drug manufacturers have voluntarily reduced the prices ranging between 2 to 74 per cent in the retail market.

The pharma companies have also agreed to voluntarily restrict the trade margins of generic medicines which has been restricted to 15 per cent for wholesalers and 35 per cent for retailers.

The list covers anti diabetics, antibiotics, cough syryps, painkillers as well as those used during surgical operations, for curing infectious diseases and for the treatment of hypertension in various formulations and dosage forms such as tablets, capsules and syrups.

Releasing the booklet containing the list, Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertiliser Ram Vilas Paswan said that medicines manufactured on or after October 2, 2006 may take 4 to 6 weeks to reach the retail counter bearing the reduced price tag on the label.

He also mentioned that the maximum retail price (MRP) on medicines inclusive of all local taxes has been made effective from October 2, 2006 and has also urged the Rs 54,000 crore-industry for bilingual labels to print names of medicine, manufacturing date, expiry date and MRP in Hindi in addition to English.

The booklet has been brought out by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals for the information of the common man. The new prices would be effective on batches manufactured from October 2 onwards and latest by November 2, 2006.

Eleven major drug manufacturing companies had supplied the list of reduced prices on various medicines for 886 formulation packs with range of reduction from 0.26 per cent to 74.53 per cent.

The Minister said that this is the first part in the series and subsequent editions would be brought out with information on more such medicines as other companies were also being requested to reduce their prices for the benefit of the common man.

He further said that the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) would continue to fix the price of Scheduled formulation without local taxes and manufacturers would have to add the element of local taxes to arrive at the MRP.

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