The union minister for chemicals and fertilizers Ram Vilas Paswan has turned pro industry and indicated that he was not keen on bringing more drugs under price control. In a clear deviation from his earlier stand, the minister informed the Indian pharmaceutical industry that he was more for monitoring the drug prices than controlling it.

The minister, who was earlier seen as a staunch supporter of bringing all "essential medicines" under price control, has, in a meeting with the industry representatives on Friday in New Delhi, said he would not impose any price control if the industry can self-regulate and keep the drug prices under check.

Appreciating the minister's intention, major industry associations like Indian Drugs Manufacturers Association (IDMA) and Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) agreed to partner with the government to bring down the prices of "generic" medicines. However, there were no commitments from the industry with regard to the prices of branded drugs.

The industry assurance has not come without any protest, as Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA), the powerful lobby of domestic drug companies who among themselves share about 35 per cent of total domestic drug business, has not agreed to the IDMA-OPPI suggestions. The Confederation of Indian Pharmaceutical Industries (CIPI), association representing the small players in the segment also expressed reservations on fixing cap on generic prices as they felt that it could prove disastrous to them. The IPA said that they have voluntarily decided not to increase the prices of their generic medicines in response to the minister's concern and was not in a position to consider further reduction. The matter would be discussed in their meeting scheduled on October 8, they added.

While the lack of unity among the industry was evident from the beginning of the ongoing interactions with the minister on pricing issue, the minister's turnaround should be seen as a pleasant surprise for the industry. The minister had recently hailed the decision of IPA to free the prices of generic medicines for six months as a great step forward in his pursuit towards reducing the prices of drugs. To the surprise of many, he did not follow up the matter with other industry associations during the interactive meeting. Backtracking from his single point agenda of controlling prices, the minister said that he was not for increasing the span of price control per se. "Neither is there any intention to police the industry. However pricing of medicines reflecting its true value is an issue, which can be tackled by the industry through self-regulation or self-discipline," he said.

Paswan was of the opinion that a more stringent regulatory regime was needed only when these self-regulatory strategies are either not workable or there is plain unwillingness by the players to be bound by such mechanisms. "We are conscious of the fact that bringing a few essential drugs under price control will not be effective unless the decontrolled category is also effectively regulated so that unscrupulous firms do not migrate to decontrolled sector affecting availability of medicines in the controlled basket," he said.

With the industry not giving any concrete promises to the minister, what needs to be seen is how they intend to self regulate the prices of "at least" the generic drugs so as to enable the minister to continue his soft stand calling for "monitoring of drugs."