The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority may take two weeks to intimate the drug companies involved in overpricing of the seven scheduled bulk drugs and their formulations, about the initial amount they have to pay back the authority. The Supreme Court had asked NPPA to calculate the pending dues of each company and recover 50% of that amount after giving a month's notice.

While NPPA would issue notices for the recovery of overcharged prices based on its calculations till Year 2000, the rest of the amount can come only after detailed verification. According to senior officials, the calculation itself would take months as parameters like the bulk drug, the company, monthly price variations in the case of each company and each drug etc are all to be looked into before they could reach at a figure that corresponds to the exact overcharged price.

At present the total amount recoverable from these companies as per the SC directive would be around Rs.140 crore. The NPPA is in the process of seeking opinion from the Chemical and Fertilizers Ministry and the Law Ministry in this regard.

Meanwhile, the pharma industry is yet to react to the SC order. Though associations like IDMA and BDMA had hailed the Mumbai HC verdict which freed the bulk drugs salbutamol, theophylline, cyproflaxacin, norfloxacin, cloxacillin, dozycycline and glipizide from price control, the industry prefers to be silent after the SC order.

The major companies to be affected by the NPPA decision are Cipla Ltd, Okasa Pharma Ltd, Unichem Laboratories, Ranbaxy Laboratories, Dr.Reddy's Labs and USV Ltd.