With another Union Budget in the making for the next financial year, the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) is learnt to be pitching for total customs duty waiver for all cancer and HIV drugs to make the treatment of these two fatal diseases cheaper.

Sources indicated that the DoP has already taken up the proposal with the Union Finance Ministry for inclusion in the forthcoming budget, after taking the inputs from the industry and other stake-holders like public interest organisations as part of the pre-budget exercises.

Though the industry had been pressing for the same before the previous budget of 2010-11 also, the Finance Minister reduced the basic customs duty on 11 specified drugs, including two anticancer and one for the treatment of AIDS, to five per cent. These drugs were also being exempted from countervailing duty (CVD) by way of excise duty exemption.

This time around, the DoP has reportedly suggested to the Finance Ministry to include cancer drugs in the category of life-saving drugs and give total exemption so that the cost of treatment could be brought down.

Cancer accounts for nearly 4 per cent of the total number of deaths occurring in India every year and is the second largest non communicable disease in the country. Oral and lung cancer in males and cervix and breast cancer in women account for over half of all cancer deaths in India. Market for breast cancer drugs alone is expected to double from $35 million in 2007 to $64 million by 2012, according to the estimates.

Both MNCs as well as domestic companies including GSK, Roche, Pfizer, Dr Reddy’s, Cipla, Biocon, Natco and Ranbaxy vie for the fast-growing cancer drug market. However, despite the competition in the market, the cancer drugs available in the country are bit too expensive for the common man.

Likewise, the drugs used to treat HIV infection are also costly, though the government-sponsored AIDS programme offers three anti retroviral drugs to patients free of cost. As part of the pre-budget recommendations, the DoP has also asked for cutting down the excise and customs duties levied on HIV drugs, it is learnt.