Pharma policy draft to be placed before GoM in 3 weeks

Pulled up by the Supreme Court, the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers has set a deadline of three weeks for a final version of its draft pharma policy before the group of ministers (GoM) constituted for the purpose two years earlier.

The ministry on Thursday assured the Supreme Court of this in a hearing on a suit filed by civil society group, All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN). The group had sought the apex court’s intervention after the government failed to implement the court’s 10-year directive that asked the central government to finalise a pharma policy that brought all essential and life-saving drugs under price control.

“The ministry has agreed to submit the policy for the GoM’s decision within three weeks and this will be placed before the Cabinet for final approval soon,” said Colin Gonsalves, the petitioner’s counsel. The next hearing of the case has been scheduled for March.

The GoM, headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, is yet to call its first meeting.

The Supreme Court bench, comprising judges S J Mukhopadhaya and G S Singhvi, had last week asked the government to set a deadline for finalising the National Pharmaceutical Policy.

The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) prepared by the health ministry lists 348 drugs, of which the prices of only 37 are controlled by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority under the existing policy. According to official estimates, the turnover of NLEM medicines is Rs 29,000 crore and hence, accounts for 60 per cent of the Rs 48,200-crore domestic market.

Other members of the GoM are Ghulam Nabi Azad, minister of health and family welfare; Kapil Sibal, minister of human resource development and communications and information technology; Anand Sharma, minister of commerce and industry; M K Alagiri, minister of chemicals and fertilisers; Salman Khurshid, minister of law and justice and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission.