886 medicines with reduced price tag listed

New Delhi, Oct 31: 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.

Mr Paswan made it clear that the government did not have any power to control the prices of these drugs and the same had been done by the pharma companies voluntarily on his request. The Government is concerned about 354 drugs only which are considered as essential and life saving drugs to monitor the prices. He also informed that as part of public-private partnership, it is proposed to set up Drug Banks at the district level in the States and a draft scheme has been sent to State Governments. It is expected to start this scheme around January 26, 2007 in a few districts on a pilot basis to provide free medicines to families below poverty line (BPL) from these banks.

A proposal is also underway to start a Cancer Medicine Assistance Scheme in all the major Cancer hospitals of the country under which the medicines would be provided at 50 per cent of the market price to all the cancer patients. BPL families, handicapped persons and senior citizens would be provided cancer medicines free under this scheme, the Minister said.

The NPPA is being strengthened for more intensive monitoring of drug prices and a web-based mechanism would be developed for easy accessibility of information and transparency. Information Technology would be used to develop mechanisms to initiate prosecution of defaulters under DPCO, 1995.

A new Act, known as Drugs (Prices Regulation and Control) Act is proposed to be enacted to have effective control on prices, production, distribution and supply of medicines.

This Act would replace the existing Essential Commodities Act and would empower the Government to impose a price or limit the increase in price or control the price of medicines in any manner.

''While the new Act would have broad based enabling provisions, the exact nature and modalities of price control would be decided in the National Pharmaceutical Policy and implemented through a new DPCO,'' Mr Paswan said.

The Draft of the Bill has been cirulated to the States, Pharma Associations and various Ministries and Departments for their views, he added.

UNI