The antibiotics challenge

Don't extend price caps on drugs

An expert committee, according to a report in this newspaper, is likely to recommend to the drug price regulator that it should “rationalise” caps on antibiotic prices by bringing non-branded generic medicines into the net.  

Currently, branded antibiotics like Augmentin have a margin cap of 8 per cent for stockists and 16 per cent for retailers, while their wholesale prices are fixed by the regulator. Similar regulations will now be introduced, if the National Pharmaceutical Price Authority agrees, for generic antibiotics. The immediate impact of such a change is not known, although it is speculated that hospital margins will be most