Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ram Vilas Paswan has convened a high level meeting of Central and state government officials to discuss various issues concerning the pharmaceutical industry. The meeting, to be held on May 15 at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, is expected to focus on the controversial voluntary price reduction by the pharma companies, it is learnt.

According to sources in the Ministry, the meeting will deliberate mainly on 'drug pricing and availability' in the country. Apart from Paswan, health ministers and health secretaries from all the states and union territories, two special invitees from each state, representatives from NPPA and senior officials Union Health Ministry and Chemicals Ministry will be present in the meeting.

Though this is the third meeting of the pharma advisory forum, it is considered very crucial as Group of Ministers (GoM) on national pharma policy under Sharad Pawar is in the midst of discussing the issue of price control in pharmaceutical industry. The meeting will provide a feedback to the Chemicals Ministry on the issue of voluntary price reduction by pharma manufacturers.

Sources said, that the pharmaceutical manufacturers might be caught on the wrong foot on the issue of voluntary price reduction as there were reports of voluntary price cut not reflecting in the retail prices of several drugs.

As a knee-jerk reaction to the Union Chemicals ministry's proposal to bring 354 more drugs under price control, the pharma companies in the country agreed to voluntarily restrict the trade margins for generic medicines to 15 per cent for wholesalers and 35 per cent for retailers. As a result of this voluntary cap on trade margins, the prices of some of the 886 formulation packs manufactured by 11 companies.

The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers had published in October 2006 a list of 886 medicines whose prices have been voluntarily reduced by 11 leading manufacturers due to sharp cut in trade margins. The price reduction is in the range of 0.26 per cent to 74.53 per cent. The ministry had entrusted an independent agency and also National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to verify the industry claims.