 "NPPA launches mobile App to provide real time drug prices")
National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has launched a mobile App, Pharma Sahi Daam, to show the MRP fixed by NPPA for various scheduled drugs on real time basis. “Amendments will be made soon to empower NPPA in gathering data and taking appropriate decisions for the drugs included in the NLEM (National List of Essential Medicines) but market data is not available. We are pursuing the case for making an independent Ministry for Pharmaceuticals so that all decisions regarding the industry could be taken under a single roof,” said Ananth Kumar, Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs, while speaking at the NPPA Foundation Day in New Delhi yesterday.
Urging the industry leaders, state governments, other departments and civil society to come together for making available medicines at affordable prices to the common man, he said, “In the last two and a half years, almost 900 formulations have been brought under the price control, providing a saving of about Rs 5,000 crores to the consumers.” NPPA has already come out with ceiling price of 368 new drugs within 6 months of the issue of new NLEM 2015.
The Minister advocated a ‘3A’ approach – availability, affordability and accessibility - to achieve health security for every citizen of India. Ananth Kumar highlighted the need of transparent and efficient discovery of drug prices and regulation of the pharma sector.
The Indian pharmaceutical industry has reached to almost $ 37 billion, with medicines being exported to over 200 countries. Pharmaceutical is a sunrise industry and the Government is providing support to it through various means like pharmaceutical parks, medical devices parks, pharmaceutical clusters and promotion of innovation through Atal Innovation Scheme.
The government is adopting a two-pronged strategy to provide low-cost medicines to the common man - one is through regulating the prices by NPPA and another by opening Jan Aushadhi Stores. “Within one year, 3000 Jan Aushadhi Stores will be opened in the country covering all districts and tehsils. Most of the medicines in these stores cost 30 to 40 per cent as compared to the market cost and no medicine in Jan Aushadhi Store is more than 50 per cent of the market cost,” said Ananth Kumar.