-The Times of India The Centre on Thursday promised to notify a new drug pricing mechanism for essential medicines by the end of November, but the Supreme Court said a change in policy must not force a sharp rise in drug prices to hurt an already hassled common man. Additional solicitor general Siddharth Luthra informed a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya that a Cabinet note on the...

-Live Mint Incidents at Bhopal and Indore highlight irregularities and ethical violations in some trials In 2004, doctors at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC), established exclusively for treating the victims of the 1984 gas leak, recruited unsuspecting survivors for clinical trials without their knowledge or consent; 14 participants died during the course of the trials. Together with the episode in Indore’s Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital (that Mint reported on 10...

-The Business Standard The proposed pharma pricing policy may give room to drug makers to escape price control. While the policy is primarily aimed at making essential medicines affordable, many feel the spirit is missing in the recommendations put forward by a group of ministers a few days ago. For instance, the ministerial panel has proposed to regulate prices of only 348 essential medicines and keep combination products out of control —...

-The Hindu The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan on Monday called upon the Union Government to extend free medicine supply scheme, presently operational in a few States like Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, all over the country to reduce out-of-pocket expenditure of common people on health care. Such a scheme would especially benefit the patients deprived of any kind of treatment due to poverty. In a letter addressed to Union Health & Family Welfare Secretary...

-The Hindu A 2012 WHO study ranks India third — behind Myanmar and Bangladesh — among countries that fail to provide health cover to people. A 2011 study reported in The Lancet on ‘Healthcare and equity’ confirms this: every year, at least 39 million people here fall into poverty due to private out-of-pocket health expenditure. A vast majority of Indians do not have access to healthcare or essential drugs. By the...