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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Price control not working for cancer drugs-Joe C Mathew

Price control not working for cancer drugs-Joe C Mathew

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published Published on Apr 2, 2012   modified Modified on Apr 2, 2012

The medicine price regulator, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), has found a price fixing mechanism suggested by its parent ministry, chemicals and fertilisers, has failed to meaningfully lower the prices of key cancer medicines.

A group of ministers (GoM) headed by agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is expected to meet soon to finalise a pricing policy on drugs.

The NPPA study findings may compel the ministry to seek other effective ways of controlling prices of essential cancer medicines, manufactured by nearly 20 domestic and multinational drug makers such as Ranbaxy, Cipla, GlaxoSmithKline, Fresenius Kabi, Eli Lilly, Novartis, etc.
Invoking a public interest clause in the current Drug Price Control Order to empower NPPA to fix the price of these drugs is one option, officials said.

The study, conducted at the behest of Srikant Kumar Jena, minister of state, chemicals and fertilisers, was meant to find the impact on the prices of anti-cancer drugs on the basis of the methodology suggested in the draft policy. Cancer drugs, in general, are more expensive than other commonly used medications.

The NPPA analysis covered specific strengths of all cancer drug formulations mentioned in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2011 of the health ministry, say officials. However, an attempt to find the weighted average price of the top three brands as proposed in the draft policy did not succeed completely due to a host of reasons, including insufficient data.

Of the 34 anti-cancer drugs, NPPA was able to calculate the weighted average price of the top three brands of only 14 formulations. While the price arrived at was higher than the prevailing price of the top brand in three cases, in six others the price reduction was nominal.

“The finding of the study is contrary to the spirit of the draft pharma policy, as it was intended to make essential drugs affordable and available through price control mechanisms,” an official noted.

NPPA relies solely on the data supplied by market intelligence agency IMS Health to track the price fluctuations in domestic drug market. It is known that IMS did not have any information on six drugs mentioned in the 34-drug list. In the case of four others, the data did not provide a complete picture of the value and quantity, it is learnt.

The ministry had identified IMS data as the primary information source in the draft pharmaceutical pricing policy. The draft policy attempts to bring all 348 specific formulations mentioned in the NLEM 2011 list under price control.

The inclusion of all NLEM drugs under price control became a compulsion after a Supreme Court directive some years earlier. The current draft, post GoM approval, has to be sent to the Supreme Court for its nod.

The Business Standard, 2 April, 2012, http://business-standard.com/india/news/price-control-not-working-for-cancer-drugs/469819/


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