The chemicals and fertilizers minister Ram Vilas Paswan is meeting representatives of all pharmaceutical industry associations in Delhi on Friday to discuss ways and means of reducing drug prices and controlling retail profit margins in the country.

The meeting comes in the backdrop of the recent offer of Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), a grouping of domestic drug majors, to "voluntarily freeze" the prices of drugs produced by their members for the current financial year. Being the first meeting where all drug industry associations are represented, the minister is likely to extract similar "voluntary offers" from other industry associations as well.

The Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (IDMA) is known to be soft on the matter and is expected to announce a decision on their support to the idea of "freezing prices" for a short period at the meeting. The Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI), representing multinational companies in India however is yet to give any such indications. According to industry consultants, only those companies which are overcharging or is making additional profits can give an assurance to freeze the prices without fear of being affected by any possible fluctuation in the raw material prices.

The "interactive session with the industry on issues related to the pharmaceutical sector" is to be attended by five members each from every association. While associations like IPA, which has just a dozen members in its fold, can be happy with the decision, IDMA, which has hundreds of active members, will have to be contended with representation "disproportionate" to its strength. The OPPI, Bulk Drugs Manufacturers Association (BDMA), All India Small Scale Manufacturers Association etc are some of the organizations that are to be presented during the interactive session.

The meeting is the second attempt by the union minister to bring in rational changes in drug pricing and availability in the country. The earlier one was a meeting with all state health or finance ministers, where the minister unsuccessfully tried to convince the state ministers on the need for uniform MRP inclusive of all taxes for medicines across the country. Though the minister appealed the states to forgo the tax revenue on drugs and agree for uniform taxes and uniform MRP inclusive of taxes all over the country, the states were not interested in any agreement before the VAT regime is in place.

The agenda of the current meeting is somewhat identical to that of the meeting with the state ministers. The state ministers meting was planned as a step to evolve a common strategy for ensuring availability of medicines at reasonable price and also quality of medicines.