The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) and the Union ministry of health will file separate affidavits in the Supreme Court on the issue of bringing down of prices of medicines included in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM).  The issue will come up for hearing on November 17 in the Supreme Court.

According to sources, both the health ministry and the DoP are viewing the issue from two different viewpoints. While the health ministry, which is primarily concerned about the quality of the drugs available in the country, will have a social approach and will push for bringing down the prices of drugs, the DoP which is the administrative ministry for the pharma industry will have a commercial approach to the issue.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had served notices to the DoP and the ministry of health, asking them to file an affidavit within four weeks' time stating that whether the government intended to bring the essential medicines under the ambit of price control.

Acting heavily on the government for its failure in bringing down the prices of medicines included in the NLEM, the supreme court bench consisting of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya asked the secretaries of ministry of health and ministry of chemicals and fertilizers to file the affidavits in four weeks.   The NLEM has 348 drugs, of which the prices of only 37 medicines are controlled by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).

The court's intervention in the issue was in response to a petition filed by  All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN), an NGO working in the health sector in the country. The court took note of a 2010 parliamentary standing committee report as well as a 2005 standing committee report of the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers which had admitted that essential medicines were not available to the poor at reasonable prices in the country.

The petitioner AIDAN, through senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, had cited parliamentary committee reports, which said that poor patients were not getting the essential medicines because of ever increasing prices of these medicines. The reports had also noted the sharp increase in prices of these drugs and expressed concern over the gradual decrease in the number of essential medicines, which were put under the price control regime.