The national pharmaceutical policy, which has been hanging fire since the year 2002 due to major differences among the stake-holders on several proposals especially on the issue of bringing more medicines under price control, may eventually see the light of the day by September this year. A clear indication to this effect was given by none other than the head of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on pharma policy and union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar.
Inaugurating the new malaria vaccine and oncology facility at Emcure Biopharmaceutical in Pune, Sharad Pawar said that the GoM led by him is continuously working for the policy and it will be finalised in 2-3 months time.
Pawar's statement in this regard at a gathering of pharma people is significant as this is for the first time since the formation of the GoM by the Prime Minster in January 2007 that Pawar has announced any time frame to finalise the recommendation on the policy. Besides, most people in the industry had interpreted the formation of GoM as yet another delaying tactics by the central government to eventually shelve the policy till the next government at the Centre. But, the announcement by Pawar has given hope that the much awaited policy will see the light sooner than later.
The GoM, which has been moving at a snail's pace due to the GoM chairman Sharad Pawar's preoccupation with other works and also due to the sharp differences on the core issue of price control, is learnt to be on the last stages of the finalisation of the policy.
The 7-member GoM, which was constituted to settle the issue to the satisfaction of all the stakeholders, had held four meetings so far. In the last meeting on April 30 the health ministry raised objection to some key proposals of the policy which was prepared by the chemicals ministry, leaving the meeting inconclusive. In the meeting, Pawar asked the secretaries of the two ministries to resolve the differences and get back to the GoM to conclude the recommendations.
Though there are differences among the stake-holders on several proposals in the policy, the one issue that resulted in the inordinate delay of the announcement of the policy is the price control. There are differences even among the ministers on the issue. While Union chemicals minister Ramvilas Paswan has been insisting on bringing 354 medicines under price control, some of his cabinet colleagues were against. Cutting across the size of their business, all the pharma manufacturers are going the whole hog to oppose the proposals of price control on the plea that the government monitoring is enough and the market forces will take care of the prices of the medicines.