-The Hindu Kochi: An artificial scarcity of drugs looms large with the new drug pricing regime, slashing prices for 348 essential drugs, set to prevail from July 29. Many retailers who stock medicines for a week are not picking up medicines and are keeping a minimum inventory. Some retailers said distributors were not making medicines available. It has sent medical retail stores into a tizzy about the fate of already available stocks. J.S....

-The Economic Times Over a year ago, I had written a piece, Quo Vadis, Indian Pharma? (ET, May 11, 2012), in this column. Some key issues were highlighted in the article. Perhaps it is time to revisit the subject and bring out some current issues. Price control: Hurray, the department of pharmaceuticals has come out with a new non-intrusive price control methodology, moving from the cost-based model to the average market price...

-The Business Standard The new price caps for 191 essential drugs are likely to introduce serious distortions in the market for these medicines The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, or NPPA, has announced new price caps for 191 essential drugs that are 10 to 50 per cent lower than the current prices. Drug makers have 45 days to recall the earlier batches and send out new ones with the lower price tags. This...

-The Hindu The current market prices are essentially over and above the actual cost of production - a difference that could run from 100 per cent to 5,600 per cent, depending upon various therapeutic categories In a liberalised market economy, do we need price controls on drugs? Policymakers and the pharmaceutical industry do not think so. They believe that price controls are an inefficient tool that distorts resource allocation, squeezes revenue, reduces...

-The Hindu     The much-awaited Drug (Prices Control) Order 2013 has disappointed millions of patients, as it lacks a fair formula to fix the price ceiling and leaves important drug classes out of regulation. The result: High out-of-pocket spending on medicines will continue As far as intentions go, the Drug (Prices Control) Order 2013 is aimed at making critical drugs affordable and available to the public, while preserving a rationale for manufacture by...