Emboldened by the recent victory in getting stay orders from the Madras High Court on the FDC issue, the pharma industry may move court against what the industry termed the 'anti-industry and autocratic' functioning of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).

According to sources in the industry, some industry association is mulling over the prospects of moving court against the NPPA as the industry is facing a lot of problems due to the anti-industry functioning of the government body which was created to ensure fair prices to essential medicines that were brought under price control. Apart from 'policing' the industry, the NPPA does not pay heed to the justified demands of the industry, industry sources rued.

"There is a predominant view among our members that the association should move against the NPPA's functioning. But we are not yet finalised whether to move court or not", an association leader said.

The main grudge of the industry is that even though the pricing authority periodically fixes and reduces the prices of medicines that come under price control, it does not allow the drug companies to increase the prices even when there is a steep increase in the cost of raw material. Even the justified demands of the industry is either refused or delayed, sources said.

Though there are many such cases, the example of amoxicillin is the one which will drive the point home. Though there has been manifold increase in the price of bulk amoxicillin, the NPPA did not grant drug companies to hike the formulation prices, sources said.

In fact, resentment has been brewing among the drug units over what they termed 'policing' by the NPPA over the drug companies in the name of price control. The NPPA had some time back set up an enforcement wing to prevent drug companies from circumventing the law to escape price control and to ensure that the drug companies are pricing their products as per government guidelines.

But, the industry is annoyed over what they said the 'over enthusiasm' of the NPPA. The NPPA was set up to watch the prices of medicines under price control only, but over a period of time, it has started evaluating the prices of all the medicines. It is not the job of the NPPA to evaluate each and every product, an industry expert said.