The government has decided to put a cap on prices of 42 essential medicines used in treatment of various critical and life-threatening diseases such as tuberculosis, cancer and cardiac diseases.
As per reports, the ceiling prescribed by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA ) would bring the cost of these essential drugs down by almost 15 %.
The NPPA, in it notification, said it has fixed or revised ceiling prices of 45 scheduled formulations of Schedule-I under Drugs (Price Control) Amendment Order, 2016.
Out of the 45, the price of 42 drugs would come down by 15 %.
The authority has also fixed the retail price of 12 formulations under DPCO, 2013.
The government fixes the prices of essential drugs based on the simple average of all medicines in a particular therapeutic segment, having sales of more than 1 per cent.
Set up in 1997, NPPA has been entrusted with the task of fixation/revision of prices of pharma products, enforcement of provisions of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order and monitoring of prices of controlled and decontrolled drugs.