The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has notified the Norms for packing material cost vide S.O. No. 627(E) dated 26.05.04. This is the first time NPPA has come out with specific norms for calculating the packing material cost. PM cost is an important factor along with process loss (PL), conversion cost (CC) and packing charges (PC) in fixing the price of drugs that come under the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO), 1995.

As per the new norms, the allowance for PM cost is to go down by 3 to 56 per cent for most of the scheduled drugs thus slightly impacting the present cost.

In order to prescribe the norms for various type of packaging used in the pharmaceutical Industry, a comprehensive exercise was undertaken by the NPPA. National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) was associated to provide the technical input for this study. Norms for certain categories of items such as inhalers/spray/aerosol etc. could not be prescribed due to paucity of data and therefore have not been covered in this notification. The items not covered in the notification will be examined on a case to case basis.