The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is exploring the possibility of bringing in most of the life saving drugs, which have been introduced into the domestic market after 1994, under the price control. The NPPA has sought the help of pharmaceutical industry associations to collect statistical information on all new drugs introduced in the market during the last seven years. The authority may also seek similar data from individual companies in due course of time it is learnt.

Informing Pharmabiz.com, Arun Kshetrapal, chairman, NPPA, said that the authority intends to have the data of all new drugs introduced in the market until March 31st 2004 in the coming months. "Once the data is ready, we will be able to identify the new drugs that need to be brought under price control," he said.

It should be noted that the Pharmaceutical Policy 2002, currently under Supreme Court scrutiny, had favoured a major reduction in the span of price control. The adoption of the new criteria would have brought down the number of drugs under price control listed in Schedule 1 of the Drugs Prices Control Order from 74 to around 30, thereby shrinking the span of price control over the domestic pharmaceutical market to nearly 20 per cent from about 38 per cent.

The new exercise by NPPA has to be seen more as an attempt to understand the current market situations, than as a move to bring in more drugs under price control. This is because the effectiveness of the NPPA move is totally dependent on the pending decision of the Supreme Court on the Pharmaceutical Policy case. Though the collection of data is to be carried out, the agency is likely to wait for the SC decision to initiate any actions.

It is known that pharmaceutical companies have introduced hundreds of new drugs during the last seven years. Commenting on the issue, Dr Chandra M Gulhati, editor, Monthly Index of Medical Specialties (MIMS) said that there has been no price revision since April 1 1991. "Many of the fast moving products have been introduced into the market during this period. The NSAIDS, which includes drugs like Nimesulide, is the therapeutic segment that saw the introduction of maximum number of new drugs," he said.