The pro-active initiative of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to revise norms of conversion cost (CC), Packing Charges (PC), Process Loss (PL) and Packing Material (PM) by involving the stakeholders has evoked lukewarm response from the pharmaceutical industry so far.

The agency got so far inputs from only two companies, forcing it to send notices to the industry associations again to gather recommendations from the industry. Apart from the usual practice of sending questionnaires to the companies, this time the agency had also held a meeting with the stakeholders to involve them actively and address their concerns. However, still the industry failed to respond positively.

“In line with provision of para 7 of DPCO’95, the revision of CC, PC, PL and PM norms are to be notified every year by NPPA. Accordingly, NPPA has already taken up the study for revision of norms for CC, PC, PL and PM norms for the year 2012. In this connection, a meeting was also held with the representative of associations of pharmaceuticals companies on 14.05.2012 in NPPA to discuss modalities to finalise the study for revision of norms for CC, PC, PL and PM norms for the year 2012. In this meeting, the representatives of associations of pharmaceuticals companies also agreed to impress upon respective member companies/organizations to furnish requisite data/information within stipulated time-frame,” the fresh notice by the agency said.

“Subsequently, letters were also issued to pharmaceuticals companies and Associations to submit data/information for the year 2010-11 by 31.07.2012 and the same for the year 2011-12 by 15.10.2012 in the prescribed formats,” it said.

“So far, NPPA has received information/data for the year 2010-11 only from two companies till 31.07.2012. It may be appreciated that the data/information asked for the study is of utmost importance for finalization of CC, PC, PL and PM norms. It is therefore essential to have complete data from manufacturers/formulators in order to finalise the study as per the provision of para 7 of the DPCO’95,” it said.