The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP)'s high level committee, constituted recently to review the scope of the Drugs (Price Control) Order, 2013 (DPCO, 2013), has invited comments and suggestions from stakeholders including civil society organisations and NGOs working in the health sector in the country.

According to senior officials in the Department, the panel, which was asked by the DoP to suggest ways for strengthening the regulatory provisions of the order for ensuring enhanced accessibility of drugs to the poor patients in the country, held its first meeting on April 6 and it was decided in the meeting to invite comments and suggestions from stakeholders including civil society organisations and NGOs.

The panel has asked the stakeholders to send in their suggestions and comments by May 1, 2017 at chaudhary.ak@nic.in.

Senior officials said that medicines constitute a major portion of the high out of pocket expense of a patient. The government since 1962 has issued orders for controlling the prices of medicines. Since 1970 onwards, these orders have been issued under the Essential Commodities Act 1955. The last Drugs (Price Control) Order, 2013 was notified by the government on 15th May, 2013.

Since then, the department has received various requests and representations including from the NPPA, pharma industry associations and other stakeholders suggesting improvements in the provisions of DPCO-2013 based on the experience gained during its implementation. In the light of these representations and to further improve the availability, affordability and accessibility of drugs for the domestic patients, the DoP constituted this high level panel.

The terms of reference of the committee are to suggest measures to be taken for making pricing policy more in favour of poor patient's affordable medicare and health security; to review scope of the DPCO-2013; suggest ways for making the existing mechanisms for collection of market-based data on prices of medicines more robust and streamlined and for strengthening the existing pharmaceutical database management system; procedural improvements and process engineering in NPPA to ensure better and quicker implementation of DPCO and bring greater transparency so as to reduce ligitations and review petitions; and suggest ways to make DPCO-2013 more comprehensive in light of past experience of implementing DPCO.

Joint Secretary (Policy), DoP; joint Secretary (NIPER & PSU), DoP; Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare; Joint Secretary & Member Secretary, NPPA; Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI); are Executive Director, National Health System Resource Centre (NHSRC) are the other members of the committee which has been asked to submit its report within six weeks from the date of its constitution. Director (Policy), DoP, is the convener of the committee.