National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority News

The new price ceiling will apply to drugs like Antitoxins, Cholesterol, Sugar, Pain, Fever, Infection, Stopping Excessive Bleeding, Calcium, VitD 3, Children's Antibiotics, Zee Media channel reported.

This means that the prices of nearly 800 scheduled medicines on the NLEM, which are used to treat fever, infections, skin diseases. The NLEM contains life-saving medications such as paracetamol, azithromycin, phenobarbitone, ciprofloxacin hydrochloride, phenytoin sodium, and metronidazole.

The price cap is aimed at preventing "exploitative pricing, unethical profiteering and an extraordinary failed market system", the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority said.

Drug pricing regulator NPPA on Friday said prices of around 78 per cent of 'actively used' drugs will remain unaffected after the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax from midnight tonight.

In order to facilitate smooth implementation of GST for companies, we have worked out the provisional ceiling prices of 761 formulations, NPPA Chairman Bhupendra Singh said.

Drug pricing regulator NPPA has fixed the ceiling price of 30 more formulations, including those used for treatment of hepatitis, heart conditions, infections, fever and pain.

The government`s move to put a price cap on stents, which are used to open up blocked arteries, has drawn flak from the health experts, who believe this will block innovation and put patients in jeopardy.  

The NPPA met stent makers and importers today to discuss issues like pricing and availability of the medical device.

The prices of other important cancer drugs, such as Nanoxel (Rs 1,035) and Frastim (Rs 1,273) have been slashed by 55 per cent and 51 per cent respectively.

The calculation of price for essential drugs is based on the simple average of rates of all medicines in a particular therapeutic segment with sales of more than 1 percent.

Drug pricing regulator NPPA will meet stent manufacturers next week to discuss issues like pricing and availability of the medical device.

Prices of 42 essential medicines used in treatment of various ailments including tuberculosis, cancer, cardiac diseases, asthma, epilepsy, rheumatoid arthritis and depression have been capped by the government, reducing their cost by up to 15 percent.

 The government has formed an inter-ministerial committee to review the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) 2013, following the Supreme Court verdict this year that termed the drug pricing policy as irrational and unreasonable.

 Pharma pricing authority NPPA has capped prices of 18 formulations packs, including anti- diabetic Metformin HCl tablets, anti-bacterial Ceftriaxone Sodium injection packs and devices among others.

In a statement, regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) said "it has fixed/revised the prices in respect of 39 formulation packs..."

Novartis, in its plea, claimed that the government by a June 14, 2013 notification had revised the price of its drug, Regestrone, used for regulating women's menstrual cycle.

With just 41 out of top 100 pharma firms responding to its direction to register for online database, drug price regulator NPPA has warned to take action if the rest of the companies did not comply with its order immediately.

Drug price regulator NPPA is still to recover Rs 3,680.43 crore from various pharmaceutical companies for overcharging, while almost 95 per cent of the amount is under litigation.

The government is developing an online database system that will require pharmaceutical companies to submit information in order to enable NPPA to control drug price effectively.

The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to stay the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority order fixing prices of over 100 non- scheduled drugs.