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Journalism of Courage
The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) is examining a proposal submitted by a committee to look into the pricing of patented drugs in the country,Parliament was informed today.
“A committee which was looking into the issue of price negotiation mechanisms for patented drugs have since submitted its report which is being examined in the department,” Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers,Srikant Kumar Jena,said in a reply to a question in Rajya Sabha.
At present,there is no system of price negotiation for patented drugs,he added. Under the provisions of the Drugs Price Control Order,1995,the prices of 74 bulk drugs and formulations containing any of these scheduled drugs are controlled.
There is no control on the launch price of the non-scheduled formulations.
“As a part of the exercise for monitoring of prices for non-scheduled formulations,manufacturers are not allowed to increase the prices of non scheduled formulations exceeding 10 per cent per annum,” the Minister said.
In case,a company increases the prices beyond 10 per cent,the specific cases are taken up by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) with the respective
companies for rolling back the increase with in the limit of 10 per cent,he added.
