The department of pharmaceuticals, which held an interactive meeting with the industry in Hyderabad on July 25 to get the first hand information on the extent of Chinese effect on the input cost of drug production in the country, has assured the industry of 'justified action in the near future' on the issue. Faced with acute shortage and spiralling prices of APIs, excipients and other products like solvents and chemicals being imported from China, the pharma industry in the country has been pleading for a suo-moto price hike of APIs and formulations that are under DPCO.

According to sources, senior officials of the pharmaceuticals department and National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) heard the views of the industry in right earnest and promised them to take a justified action in the near future. The officials present on the meeting included senior officials of the pharmaceuticals department G S Sandhu, Paresh Johri and officials of the NPPA Lalit Kaushal and Arun Jha. The industry was represented by BDMA president Narayan Reddy and others.

In the meeting, which was jointly organized by the Pharmexcil and Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association (BDMA), the industry apprised the officials of the real problems being faced by the industry on account of the unprecedented increase in the prices of Chinese products due to the forthcoming Olympics in Beijing.

The industry in no uncertain terms informed the government that if the situation continues for some more time, it will be left with no other option but to stop production, threatening the availability of even the commonly used and important medicines in the country. The NPPA rules do not permit to have more than 10 per cent price increase in a year, whereas the impact of most of the commonly used APIs has gone to the extent of 50 per cent, if not more, the shortage of APIs, which included even common ingredients, is so acute that some of the APIs are not even available at double the cost, sources said.

Blaming the government for the present situation, the industry said in the meeting that the government has imposed price control on APIs, but there is no such restriction on the prices of raw material and intermediates. Even if the raw material prices go up by 100 per cent, the API cannot increase the prices by more than 10 per cent in a year as per the government restrictions, which is visibly unbalanced.

The agenda of the meeting was 'augmentation of production - issues being faced by pharma sector'. It also covered topics like situation in China as regards production, prices of drug intermediates or bulk drugs, impact of Chinese imports on industry and prices of bulk drugs or drug intermediates, measures to reduce dependence on the Chinese imports and augment production, impact of changing scenario in Europe, where regulators are being asked to inspect foreign API facilities, impact of REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals) Regulations in Europe, consequences of new product patent regime on exports and preparation for producing off-patent drugs.