Drug marketing may be brought under scanner

Govt mulls bringing marketing, promotional expenses under regulator's net

The PAF pointed out that over 5,000 new medicine packs were introduced each year in the domestic market. While National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) tracks the price increase in the medicine market, it do not assess if the prices of medicines that are newly introduced in the market are reasonable (affordable) or not. The government feels that no price control can be effective when companies are allowed to charge as much as they want on new medicines at the time of introduction.

The expert committee, headed by Ashok Kumar, chairman, NPPA will also look into the possibilities of putting some control over the prices of new drugs at the entry-level itself. The committee is to submit its recommendations before the next meeting of the advisory forum.

Speaking to reporters after the forum meeting, Paswan indicated that the final days of the central government will see his ministry moving on a mission mode to control the prices of medicines at all levels. A working group to identify the pricing practices in branded medicines, which account for 80 per cent of the domestic sales, was also announced at PAF.

The forum has also recommended the setting up of district-level generic drug stores to ensure supply of cheap alternatives of branded life-saving medicines. One drug store each will be initially set up and public sector pharma units will be asked to supply medicines to these stores. The ministry may also issue a directive seeking state governments' support to ensure that doctors in government hospitals discourage use of costly brands and instead prescribe cost-effective, generic-generic alternatives.

The drug industry, which are already complaining about the regulatory intervention on medicine prices, may also find the recommendations of the working group for "scheme for consumer awareness in drug prices, generic prices" disturbing. The working group, which submitted its report recently, calls for labelling on medicines in regional languages also. It was after much persuation, the industry had agreed to a bilingual (English and Hindi) labelling on each pack of medicine. The current recommendation, if pursued seriously, may create another headache, industry sources said.