-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government has capped trade margins of 42 cancer drugs at 30% expanding the span of price control to curtail undue profiteering by chemists and drug stockists on various medicines which were so far outside price regulation. The move is expected to bring major relief to around 1.5 million cancer patients in India reeling under exponentially high treatment cost leading to heavy out-of-pocket expenditure. In a detailed...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The health ministry was actively mulling compulsory licensing, apart from price capping, of “orphan drugs” (for rare diseases), when the department of pharmaceuticals abruptly issued an order exempting such medicines from price control, derailing plans to make these drugs affordable. The health ministry discussed price capping and invoking compulsory licence for these “exorbitantly” priced “orphan drugs” at a meeting on January 3, the day when DoP...

-The Hindu Business Line The Ayushman Bharat programme must aim to reverse poverty caused by healthcare expenses The state of India’s healthcare system is somewhat dichotomous — the country is a global supplier of life-saving, affordable and good quality generic medicines, yet lakhs of families are driven into poverty because they are forced to spend much of their earnings and savings on medications to treat chronic and life-threatening diseases. The poor, particularly,...

-The Economic Times The genesis: The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) was set up to implement the 1995 Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) and monitor overcharging of drugs and medical devices When: August 29, 1997 Total number of chairmen: 11 What the chairman has to deliver: * Implement and enforce the provisions of the DPCO * Render advice to the central government on drug pricing Highlights of the chairmen's tenures * Between 2001 and 2004, five chairmen were...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: An analysis of bills from four reputed private hospitals in Delhi and NCR by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has revealed that they are making profits of up to 1,737% on drugs, consumables and diagnostics and that these three accounts for about 46% of a patient’s bill. The analysis, released on Tuesday, noted that “the major beneficiaries of profits in all these cases because of...