India’s new pharmaceutical policy seeks to bring at least 400 essential medicines—or 60% of the drugs sold in the country—under the government’s pricing control. The department of pharmaceuticals on Friday put out a draft policy, pending since 2005, after a committee prepared a list of essential medicines, laying down new rules governing drug pricing. Currently, the government controls the prices of only 34 essential medicines. The draft says the policy, to be finalized...

Will patent rights be used only for ensuring the legitimate interests of pharmaceutical companies, or will these be used in an exaggerated and unjust way to deprive patients of their right to life? This crucial question, which has been debated time and again in the context of the significant case of Glivec, an anti-cancer drug, has now reached a critical stage. It may be pointed out here that as early as...

A committee headed by Planning Commission member Arun Maira, the former head of The Boston Consulting Group in India, wants all acquisitions of Indian pharmaceutical companies by foreigners to be scanned by the Competition Commission of India or CCI. The report will now be sent to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Prime Minister Singh is expected to take a final view on the...

-The Business Standard   It appears a committee headed by Planning Commission member Arun Maira examining the case for continued unrestricted foreign direct investment (FDI) in the pharmaceutical industry has opted to oppose the move to change the present regime. The only concession it is willing to make to the health and commerce ministries’ demand that approval of such investment be routed through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board is to ask for...

Drug prices have shot up phenomenally in India over the past decade and a half. A Planning Commission's expert group says there was nearly 40% rise in all drug prices between 1996 and 2006, thanks to the nation's pricedecontrol policies of the 1990s. Citing a study conducted in 2008, the Commission's high-level expert group (HLEG) on universal health coverage, headed by Dr K Srinath Reddy, says during the same period...