The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has warned the pharmaceutical companies of stern action if they fail to furnish the details like price to retailer (PTR) and moving annual turnover (MAT) in value terms of the formulations on which the NPPA has sought the details from the companies for fixation of prices under Para 5 of DPCO 2013.

The national pharmaceutical pricing regulator's warning to the companies comes in the wake of the fact that the NPPA during the last six months has been repeatedly asking the companies to provide the details about the formulations for fixing the prices of these drugs under Para 5 of Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO) 2013. But, the companies, instead of providing the details, chose to turn a blind eye towards the NPPA's directives, prompting the price regulator to take a rather tough stand on the issue.

Earlier, the NPPA had sent notices to the companies on this issue dated 5.3.2014, 1.4.2014 and 1.5.2014, but the price regulator is yet to get the details from the companies.

“The above-mentioned information may please be furnished within the stipulated period, failing which appropriate action will be taken under provisions of DPCO 2013 read with the EC Act, 1955 for non-compliance/furnishing of data/information”, the NPPA warned the companies.

It may be recalled that the NPPA, which has already revised the prices of over 400 formulations as per the new DPCO 2013, had recently come out with a list of 103 formulations for which prices could not be fixed as sufficient information was not available.

Apart from this, the price regulator also announced that it could not fix the prices of eight formulations as the national list of essential medicine list lacked some information like strength, route of administration, dosage form, etc. All these formulations were included in the Schedule-1 of DPCO and the agency was expected to fix the prices.