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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Overcharging set to cost pharma companies full sales revenue of drug

Overcharging set to cost pharma companies full sales revenue of drug

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published Published on Oct 26, 2012   modified Modified on Oct 26, 2012
-The Economic Times

MUMBAI: A drug maker found overcharging will have to shell out the entire sales revenue of the medicine from the date of its launch as penalty, according to a directive issued by the country's drug price regulator.

"If a company has not been booked for overcharging for selling the product without price approval, if any, pertaining to the period prior to fixation of the price of the said formulation, the entire sale amount from the date of introduction of the product till issue of the price notification order shall be recovered from the company, treating the entire sale proceeds as 'unauthorised sales'," the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) said.

The regulator said that action will also be taken in cases wherein the manufacturer and marketing company have failed to take prior price approval for sale of scheduled formulation packs. The NPPA has given state governments the authority to initiate legal action against companies found overcharging. While welcoming the move experts have raised apprehensions over the efficacy of the directive.

"They should have done this long time ago," said CM Gulati, editor of popular medical journal MIMS. "Pharma companies should be penalised three to four times of overcharging," he said, adding, "There is no mention of penalty over and above recovery of the overcharged amount plus interest. So, manufacturers do not lose anything by willfully violating DPCO. Since most matters land up in courts, the actual payment is delayed for indefinite period."

Surjit Pal, analyst at Elara Capital, said if the directive is properly executed, it will be a big blow to all the leading drug manufacturers. "But looking at the track record of NPPA, this looks doubtful," he said. Almost all the big pharma companies have, at one point or other, been charged by the NPPA for overcharging and most of these cases have ended up in courts. The most notable is that of Cipla where the NPPA has charged the company of overcharging drugs worth 1,500 crore.

Recently, the NPPA charged 37 companies for overcharging. Dara Patel, secretary general of the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association, a lobby group of Indian pharma companies, said his association is yet to fully gauge the severity of the issue.

The Economic Times, 26 October, 2012, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/healthcare/biotech/pharmaceuticals/overcharging-set-to-cost-pharma-companies-full-sales-revenue-of-drug/


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