Question : Price Control of Drugs

(a) the details about the criteria/guidelines fixed by the Government/National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) for the pricing of essential medicines including the medicines used for the treatment of cancer, diabetes and HIV as well as heart and kidney diseases;
(b) whether the price of essential medicines and other medicines has been decreased and if so, the details thereof;
(c) the steps taken by the Government to control/ reduce the price of medicines during each of the last three years and the current year and the extent to which success has been achieved so far; and
(d) the details of total Jan Aushadhi Kendras set up so far including Chhattisgarh to provide inexpensive generic medicines through Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Yojana, State-wise?

(a) & (b): National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy (NPPP), 2012 prescribes the guidelines for regulation of prices of drugs. The key principles of price regulation are (i) essentiality of drugs (ii) control of prices of formulations and (iii) MarketBased Pricing. Based on NPPP, 2012 and subsequent Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013 (DPCO, 2013), National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) under the Department of Pharmaceuticals fixes the ceiling price of scheduled drugs specified in the first schedule of the DPCO, 2013 and monitors the prices of non-scheduled drugs.

NPPA has fixed the ceiling prices of scheduled drugs, including the essential medicines used for treatment of cancer, diabetes and HIV as well as heart and kidney diseases. Further, NPPA has put a cap on Trade Margin of 42 select non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines under ‘Trade Margin Rationalization (TMR)’ Approach resulting in reduction up to 90% of Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of526 brands of these medicines.

NPPA has also brought 106 non-scheduled anti-diabetic and cardio vascular drugs under price control by invoking extra ordinary powers in public interest.The total annual savings on account of revision of ceiling prices of medicines under National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), price control of anti-diabetic & cardiovascular, fixation of ceiling price of stents, knee implants and capping of TMR on anti-cancer are estimated to the tune of Rs. 12,500 crore.

(c): NPPA monitors the ceiling price of the scheduled formulations to ensure that the MRP of such formulations are within the range of ceiling price and monitors non-scheduled formulations to ensure that their MRP does not increase by more than 10% during the preceding twelve months. The details of retail/ceiling prices fixed/revised by NPPA are available on NPPA’s website www.nppaindia.nic.in.

The details of the formulations for which price have been fixed by NPPA in the last 3 years are as follows:

S. No Type 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 (till 31st July 2021)
1. Ceiling Price 5 7 12 1
2. Retail Price 329 256 321 84
3. Ceiling price for Pharmaceutical Purchase Policy (Recommendation) - 105 57 -
4. TMR 42 (Anti Cancer drugs) - -
6 (Medical Devices)

(d): Under the Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Pariyojana (PMBJP), till 04.08.2021, about 8,004 Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Kendras (PMBJKs) are open across the country to provide generic medicines at cheaper rates to the citizens. Till 04.08.2021, about 236 PMBJKs are open in the State of Chhattisgarh. State/UT wise list of PMBJKs is enclosed as Annexure.