The ministry of chemicals and fertilizers has given one-week's time to the pharmaceutical industry associations to submit their suggestions on the recommendations of the Prime Minister's task force on drug pricing. The ministry would analyze the draft report of the task force in the light of these suggestions and finalise the report by the month-end. The final report would form the basis of the new drug policy being drafted by the ministry.
Informing this, Ram Vilas Paswan, union minister for chemicals and fertilizers said that the decision to this effect was taken after the industry associations requested more time to discuss the draft recommendations and come up with a mutually agreed workable solution. The minister said that the final recommendations for the new policy would be submitted before the Cabinet during the first week of October.
The industry had expressed reservations on the issues of the proposed price control through ceiling prices of essential medicines. The industry was not happy with the task force suggestions for de-branding of selected medicines and constitution of National Authority on Drugs and Therapeutics (NADT). The opposition towards NADT was because of its proposed merger of the offices of DCG (I), CDSCO and NPPA. The industry wanted drug price control to be the job of a separate agency.
According to Paswan, the industry representatives have agreed to the task force suggestion to make essentiality the main criteria for deciding the span of price control. The industry also agreed to make drugs available at 50% of the MRP for the government / bulk purchases. Other acceptable proposals made by the task force included price negotiation for patented drugs, private-public partnership in making the drugs available at reasonable prices, GMP compliance, need for effective health insurance, etc. The task force had also said that the ceiling price should be worked out on the basis of weighted average of top three brand of the molecule.
The draft recommendations of the task force were discussed by the minister during the meetings held with Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association (BDMA), Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (IDMA), Confederation of Indian Pharmaceutical Industries (CIPI) and a delegation led by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on the 5th and 6th of September 2005.