Close on the heels of hiking the prices of as many as 186 formulation packs, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has hiked the prices conversion cost and packing cost by 5 to 10 per cent and packing material cost by 4 per cent.

According to sources, the NPPA has taken a decision in this regard on August 7 and will be notified soon. While the decision will bring cheers to the manufacturers, who have been crying coarse for the hike in the wake of increasing prices of APIs from China, the consumers will be further burdened by the NPPA decision as they have to cough up more money for the medicines. There will be an added burden on the end users due to the NPPA decision, sources said.

The NPPA had some days back hiked the prices of as many as 186 formulation packs including monocomponent insulin, some popular combination drugs involving ibuprofen and paracetamol. The formulation packs, whose prices were increased, included those from companies like Sanofi Aventis, Pfizer Products India, RPG Life Sciences and Eli Lilly.

The prices of 13 packs of monocomponent insulin from Pfizer were hiked. Novalgin tablets and injections from Sanofi, spirolactone tablets (four packs) from RPG Life Sciences and six depo-medrol products from Pfizer were also among the formulations whose prices went up.

Other formulations which became costlier include dexibuprofen+paracetamol combination, ibuprofen, pheniramine maleate tablets, cefadroxyl tablets, two frusemide combinations, betamethasone, ciprofloxacin combination, five dexamethasone combination drugs, dextropropoxyphene, two doxycycline combinations, ibuprofen capsule, two metronidazole combination packs, five multivitamin formulations, two prednisolone injections, three dextropropoxyphane combination packs and trimethoprin.