The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has sent notices to the pharmaceutical companies in 17 cases of alleged overcharging during the month of November, taking the total number of notices since its inception to 902.
The 17 notices, sent during November to six companies, sought to recover an amount of Rs.16 lakh from the companies, all small companies, who defaulted on the overcharging norms, according to the latest figures released by the price monitoring agency.
The companies were Elmac Remedies, Arion Healthcare, Universal Life Science, Mancare Laboratories Pvt Ltd., Synokem Pharmaceuticals, and Lycon Healthcare Pvt Ltd., Arion Healthcare was served notices in six instances while Elmac got notices in four cases.
The cases in which notices were sent were Ulcitac-D Tabs (Elmac), Gentix E/E Drops, Zetocip E/E Drops, Gentazet-D E/E Drops, Criclof GM Cream, Zetadix-C E/E Drops, Nuoxid Plus Cap (all by Arion) Altocin, Mplox LB Cap, Altocin 250 (all from Elmac), Thymine Tab, Ranipic Tab, Metron-F Tab, and Ranipic-D Tab.
The NPPA, however, made better progress in recovering the due amounts during the month. An amount of Rs.1.48 crore was recovered, taking the total recovered amount so far to Rs.233.99 crore. The agency had sent 902 notices till November 30 to claim a total amount of Rs.2577.45 crore.
Continuing the same trend, witnessed for long, Cipla stayed on as the biggest defaulter accounting for more than half of the total arrears due from the entire industry. Most of the cases were dragged to the courts by the company, thus delaying the payments.
The list also has all major companies like Cadila, Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s Lab, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Sun Pharma, Nicholas Piramal, IPCA Lab, and Merck.
With most of the cases pending in the courts and in an aggressive mode to recover the dues, the NPPA had referred as many as 100 cases to the collectors of different States for recovery under land and revenue arrears in the last couple of years. But more than half of them were also contested by the companies in the courts.