The crucial meeting of the group of ministers (GoM) on national pharmaceutical policy headed by union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar will be held on March 27.

The meeting holds immense significance as it has to take a vital call on the ticklish issue of changing the earlier proposal by the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) of market-based national pharma pricing policy (NPPP) for the essential drugs or capping the prices according to the government procurement as suggested by many stakeholders. As the DoP could not take its stand on the issue, it has been decided to leave the option to the GoM for the final say.

According to sources, the DoP is giving final touches to the NPPP for submitting the same to the GoM for its meeting on March 27 as the department had earlier assured the Supreme Court that the final draft will be submitted to the GoM for taking a final decision on the issue for making the essential drugs affordable to the common man of the country.

The move to forward all key suggestions to the GoM comes in the wake of Health Ministry opposing the original draft proposal which suggested pricing of essential drugs based on the average of the three bestselling brands. Health Ministry suggested that the pricing should be based either the average price of three cheapest brands or the government’s bulk procurement price to uphold the principle of affordability.

However, it is learnt that the industry has already sent signals of opposition against capping the prices based on the cheapest drugs as it would affect the profit volumes of big players in the market. Hence the Department does not want to make a final call on the matter.

The present GoM under Pawar was constituted by the central government in September 2009 to decide the National Pharmaceutical Policy which has been hanging in balance for several years. But, it is yet to hold its first meeting. Other members of the GoM are Ghulam Nabi Azad, minister of health and family welfare; Kapil Sibal, minister of human resource development and communications and information technology; Anand Sharma, minister of commerce and industry; M K Alagiri, minister of chemicals and fertilisers; Salman Khurshid, minister of law and justice and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission.

The previous GoM on pharma was also headed by Sharad Pawar and was set up by the prime minister in January 2007.It held several meetings but could not make any recommendations. Four meetings of the GoM were held on April 10, 2007, September 12, 2007, January 30, 2008 and April 30, 2008.

Though the next meeting of the GoM was expected to finalise the policy, it never did take place, leaving the much-awaited policy in limbo.