This was something long overdue considering the spate of violations and circumventions of this Order ever since it was issued in 1995. The DPCO, 1995 was notified after limiting drugs under price control to a mere 76 when more than 400 drugs were still being marketed in the country. For some insignificant reason, control was brought down further to 74 drugs an year after. The government gesture in keeping only a few drugs under control was with the presumption that there would be a better price compliance and some amount of self regulation from the industry in the case of drugs outside price control. But what happened was a total non cooperation from the industry resulting in blatant violation of price fixing orders of NPPA and bypassing of many clauses of the DPCO. All top companies have challenged the price fixing orders in several courts in the country virtually paralyzing NPPA. The cases are still on in various courts and NPPA has to get over Rs 700 crore from several companies for overcharging price controlled drugs. Thus, the very objective of the government to make available at least some essential drugs at reasonable prices was totally defeated. Several large companies, subsequently, have either discontinued or drastically cut production of many of the 74 drugs for allegedly lower profits during the last 11 years. Meanwhile, the number of approved drugs for marketing in the country has swelled to over 600. And NPPA failed to bring any of these newly approved 200 drugs under price control although a number of them are being used by patients suffering from serious infections, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, ulcer and rheumatism. The government had empowered NPPA to bring any newly introduced drugs after the notification of DPCO under price control if they are essential and are used by large number of patients. Why, in that case, no attempt was made by the Union chemicals ministry to include some of these drugs under control all these years, needs an answer. Be that as it may, there is a widespread belief that NPPA is not fully empowered and DPCO is weak in many ways. The government move now to bring in a Drug Price Regulation and Control Bill seeking replacement of the existing DPCO is to set right the current ineffective price control mechanism. The proposed law is intended to have effective regulation, monitoring and management of drug prices including their production, distribution and trade. It should enable the Central government to regulate the prices of patented drugs through negotiations and instructions for differential pricing. Under the new regime, price negotiations would be a routine affair for all high priced patented drugs. This is an extremely important provision considering pricing practices of MNCs with regard to patented drugs. The proposed legislation is expected to make the National Pharmaceutical Advisory Forum a permanent consultative body on drug pricing. Revamping and restructuring of NPPA, fixing severe penalties and provision to compound the offences would be some other features of the new act.