The Karnataka drugs control department has set up price monitoring cell following the directive from the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).

The price monitoring cell is located within the department premises and is manned by three officials. These include the additional drugs controller, deputy drugs controller and assistant drugs controller.
The creation of the cell strengthens the infrastructure and make the monitoring of drug prices effective. The officials would now keep close tabs on the overcharging by pharma companies and will now swoop down on violators selling drugs at exorbitant prices. Ever since the price monitoring cell was established a couple of weeks ago, there were no instances of overcharging reported so far. The last incident of over pricing came in June 2014, with GSK's drug Crocin Advance, Karnataka drugs controller Raghurama Bhandary told Pharmabiz.
 
In October 2014, the department had instructed each of the 36 circles in the 30 districts to monitor drug prices along with their other assignments.

“This would enable right pricing adherence as indicated in the Drug Price Control Order 2013. The team of officers are continuing to keep a watch on the 455 drugs coming under the NPPA ambit covering largely antibiotics, cardiac care, diabetic formulations along with antipyretics, anti-infectives and anti-inflammatory medicines among others,” he added.

The state so far has been known to adhere to the DPCO 2013 and the enforcement team will conduct surprise checks, the Karnataka drugs controller said.

The department also prepared a list of companies which have drugs coming under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) to have a database of information at one go. The tabulated data indicates that price fall is between 15-35 per cent. As per the May 2015 listing, 455 drugs come under ceiling price.

So long the department has been carrying out regular inspections of pharmacy outlets to ascertain the drug quality and with a close watch on the sale of expiry dated drugs. The drug samples are picked up at random and tested at the three drug testing labs of the state’s drugs control department in Bengaluru, Hubli and Bellary. If the drug samples are tested for not-of-standard quality, then the companies are alerted. Besides the state’s over 23,000 pharmacy outlets, including the 3,000 chemists shops in Bengaluru, medical practitioners and the public are cautioned from selling, prescribing and purchasing the same respectively.

However, the pricing issue is a latest entry on the radar of the department. “We have now taken on the responsibility to ensure that there is no overcharging of prices. Therefore, we created a dedicated price monitoring cell at the headquarters itself which is supported by 36 circles to take up the onus of pricing surveillance,” Bhandary stated.