NPPA fixes price of 45 medicine packs

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has fixed the price of 45 formulation packs including those used for treating cancer, epilepsy, heartburn, eczema and bacterial infections.
"NPPA has fixed / revised the prices in respect of 45 formulation packs under Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO) 2013," the regulator said in a notification on its website.
The companies whose drugs are included for price fixation includes drug majors such as erstwhile Ranbaxy (now Sun Pharmaceutical Industries), Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Abbott Healthcare, Glenmark and Cadila Healthcare, it added.
"The manufacturer or marketing company not complying with the retail prices and conditions specified in notes hereinabove from the date of this order/notification, shall be liable to deposit overcharged amount along with the interest under the provisions of the DPCO, 1995 read with the Essential Commodities Act, 1955," NPPA said.

NPPA's mandate is to fix/ revise the prices of controlled bulk drugs and formulations and to enforce prices and availability of the medicines in the country.
The institute argued that continued training is

"critical" to ensure that drug regulators remain proficient in their operational functions and in their understanding of current good manufacturing practices, good laboratory practices and good distribution practices.
"The National Training Academy should institutionalise training of drug regulators, both new recruits and in-service officials, to enhance their depth and width of regulatory know-how, skill and competence in various areas of drug regulation, enforcement and data integrity.
"The training should be conducted by experienced faculty on a regular basis and participants should be subjected to pre and post-training assessments including behavioural aspects and skill development," it said.

It said modern digital technology tools should be leveraged to achieve these objectives and to integrate all stakeholders in the system to create a 'National Regulatory Knowledge Sharing Platform' to bring transparency, accountability and traceability in the drug supply chain management throughout the country.
During the survey, over 10 per cent of drugs in the government supply chain were found to be 'Not of Standard Quality' (NSQ).
In comparison, the estimated percentage of NSQ drugs from samples taken from retail outlets across the country was three per cent while 0.023 per cent were found to be spurious.
The extent of NSQ and spurious drugs for both retail outlets as well as government sources in the country together was estimated to be 3.16 per cent and 0.0245 per cent respectively, the survey found.

The statistical design of the drug survey included as many as 224 drug molecules belonging to 15 different therapeutic categories of the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2011.
As part of this survey, 47,954 drug samples relating to 23 dosage forms were drawn from 654 districts of 36 states and Union territories from the supply chains including retail outlets, government sources and from eight airports and seaports.