The Supreme Court, hearing a public interest litigation on the Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy, adjourned the hearing of the case till December 12 after the Government assured the Court that the new policy will be notified within two weeks.

When the case came up for hearing on Tuesday, the bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi allowed the Government two weeks time after the Department of Pharmaceuticals filed the affidavit seeking the time.

Though the petitioners All India Drugs Action Network and others, citing the media reports, argued that the prices of drugs would go up as per the new policy, the apex court however wanted to wait till the notification of the policy to have a look at the clauses, instead of going by the media reports.

The Government through additional solicitor general Siddharth Luthra informed the court that the policy was approved by the Cabinet to bring in the 348 essential medicines under price control, but the minutes of the Cabinet meeting were not yet ready. Hence, it sought more time to notify the policy.

The SC had set a deadline of November 27 for the government to come up with a pricing policy which had been pending since 2003. Accordingly, the Group of Ministers recommended the draft and sent to the Cabinet which okayed the provisions last week.

Though the Government is yet to give out the details of the policy, it is reported that the prices would be fixed based on simple average of all drugs in a particular therapeutic area having more than one percent market share.

The genesis of the pharma pricing policy lies in a 2003 SC order asking the government to bring essential medicines under price control to make them affordable for the common man. However, it took the government almost nine years to arrive at a consensus mainly on the list of essential medicines and their pricing mechanism.