The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA),  recently notified the new price ceilings of 30 medicines including antibiotics and those used in treatment of diabetes, tuberculosis and malaria.

In its latest order, the NPPA said that if any medicine is priced lower than the ceiling fixed by the regulator, then companies selling such drugs should maintain the existing or lower retail price.

The regulator has fixed the cap after arriving at the average price being charged by medicines in a particular segment which have a minimum one per cent market share. Though the regulator approved a hike of 3.8 per cent in prices of essential medicines in April based on Wholesale Price Index, prices in general have not increased.

The regulator also mandates that in case of launch of new variants of these medicines, with different packaging, dosage or strength, companies selling them will have to seek prior government approval. The idea is to ensure that companies do not tweak medicine composition or packaging to circumvent price control.

The regulations also prohibit pharmaceutical companies from discontinuing or reducing production of these medicines. If any company wants to do so, it will have to seek six months prior approval from the NPPA, the official order said.

To keep a check on prices of essential medicines, the government had also brought 52 new drugs last year under its price control mechanism including some commonly used painkillers and antibiotics, as also those useful in treatment of cancer and skin diseases. The bulk drug formulations under the controlled list included those containing paracetamol, glucose, amoxycillin, diazepam, codeine phosphate, ciprofloxacin, losartan and diclofenac.

The NPPA was established by the government to fix or revise the prices of controlled bulk drugs and formulations and to enforce prices and availability of the medicines in the country under the Drugs Prices Control Order (DPCO).

In September last year, NPPA had capped the prices of 43 formulation packs including drugs such as antibiotic ciprofloxacin, BCG vaccine and anti-diabetic metformin.

In July also, NPPA had reduced the prices of some of the key medicines and had fixed the price of 108 non-scheduled formulation packs of 50 anti-diabetes and cardiac medicines.