Attempt to bring a system of price control on essential drugs has been a key objective of the  Central government’s drug policy for several years now. It all started with a comprehensive price control order announced by the government in 1979 and subsequent price control orders in 1987 and in 1995. These government orders could not, however, bring the desired results on the price control front as the pharmaceutical companies have been either circumventing or challenging the provisions of the price control orders. And during the past thirty years the disease profile of the country got changed and many of the drugs for the life style diseases remained outside the price control. Prices of most of the drugs for the treatment of diseases like diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol, cancer, etc. remained very high and unaffordable to most of the patients. Currently most of these drugs are outside the existing price control order. As the new drug pricing policy was getting unduly delayed, the Department of Pharmaceuticals introduced the Jan Aushadhi scheme in 2008 by setting up generic stores to sell drugs at lower prices. But that has not met with much success so far. Now, the proposed new drug pricing policy announced by the Department covering 348 drugs a few weeks ago is another attempt to bring some control on prices of newly defined essential  drugs. But, the policy draft needs to be drastically modified to bring down the prices to reasonable levels.

Efforts of some of the state governments, in this context, to sell widely prescribed essential drugs at lower prices to the patients need to be appreciated. The most notable among these initiatives are Jeevandhaara and Asha Jyothy pharmacies started by Andhra Pradesh Medical Services & Infrastructure Development Corporation some weeks ago. Through this government programme, the people may get many of the widely used drugs as generics from these stores at 40-90 per cent discounts. The Corporation has tied up with major pharmaceutical companies like Ranbaxy, Cipla, Wockhardt, etc. for supply of medicines. The Corporation claims that it can sell many of the expensive drugs at much lower than the current market prices. For instance, a strip of hypertension drug, amlodipine-5mg, can be available at Rs. 4 from these stores whereas its market price is Rs. 27.50. A total of 30 such pharmacies are already working in the state covering 13 districts. The state government has issued orders to replicate the scheme in other districts as well. Now, the Kerala government wants to introduce the Jeevandhaara pharmacies in the state and Kerala Medical Services Corporation has already started to work on the project. The Gujarat is another state which is trying hard to set up generic stores at all government hospitals to sell quality drugs at lower prices. Instead of waiting for the Centre’s pricing policy, state governments should either replicate drug pricing programme adopted by AP or introduce something similar. What the country needs is such bold initiatives like these from the state governments. In a federal set up, only state driven welfare programmes like these can bring effective and fast solution to the problem of high drug prices.