Don't grumble over pricing: govt to pharma industry

The government today told pharmaceutical industry not to "grumble" over the proposed drug pricing policy saying affordability and accessibility of medicines should be the first consideration

The industry, however, said the government has not done "right things" while formulating the draft policy as it was done without consulting the stakeholders.

"It is not only the pharma sector where prices are fixed. It is fixed in other industries also. Why do you really grumble?" Minster of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Srikant Kumar Jena said while speaking at the India Pharma Summit here.

On the contentious issue of putting 348 medicines in the national list of essental medicines (NLEM)  he said:"In my opinion every medicine is essential but the issue by and large is the commonality of that 'essentiality' which can be called the 'most essential drugs' for the common people."

The minister said the main aim of the government is to provide poor people access to good quality medicines.

"Affordability, accessibility and poor people must be the first consideration," Jena said.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the the draft National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy (NPPP) 2011, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) said the industry has not been consulted while taking such an important step.

"We have got a new NLEM list which was created by lots of experts in the ministry of health. Everybody just keeps on adding on the list without consultation," IPA President and Zydus Cadila Healthcare CMD Pankaj R Patel said.

"And now finally we have a situation where 75 per cent of the turnover of the pharma industry will come under price control," he added.

The draft NPPP, 2011 proposes to regulate prices of all the 348 drugs specified in the NLEM 2011 by putting them under price control.

"If you are going to do this and then expect the industry to become famous or to be the top companies then we are not talking right things here," Patel said.

He said that the industry expected a stable policy and encouragement from the government.

As per the draft NPPP, 2011 the government proposes to regulate prices of drug formulations only, unlike the existing principle of controlling prices of specified bulk drugs and their formulations as adopted in drug policy, 1994.

This was done as it was felt that the price control in the form of formulations is better for the consumer who is actually affected only by the price of the final end product- formulation.