Now, athletes can identify prohibited medicines with NPPA, NADA app

Drug pricing regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on Tuesday joined hands with National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) to help athletes understand medicines that could contain prohibited substances in sports through its app 'Pharma Jan Samadhan'.

The two regulators signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the purpose on Tuesday.

Speaking on the occasion, Sports secretary Injeti Srinivas said: "This MoU is of huge importance as our athletes, like general public do not really understand which medicines they can take or cannot take and which medicines contain prohibited substances."

Through NPPA's app every consumer can know ingredients in a medicine. This will now have an additional feature, which will make it easy for athletes to keep away from medicines that have prohibited substances, he added.

This app will bridge the information asymmetry for athletes and help them to keep away from the prohibited substances, Srinivas said.

Acknowledging the role of NPPA, he said that drug price regulator has played an immense role in making essential medicines available to common man at affordable rates.

NPPA has also taken extraordinary steps in protecting public interest and ensuring that price control is not limited only to medicines but also extends to medical devices, he added.

Today is the foundation day of the NPPA.