Drug pricing regulator recovers just 14% dues from pharma firms in 21 years

The NPPA website notes that the amount still under litigation is around Rs 4,084.05 crore

The National Pharma Pricing Authority (NPPA) has not made much headway in recovering dues and penalties from drug firms for overcharging patients for medicines, prices of which are fixed based on the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO). In fact, between March 1997 and December 2018, the NPPA had been able to recover only about 14 per cent of the total amount demanded from drug companies.

The NPPA, which comes under the Department of Pharmaceuticals, fixes prices of drugs that feature in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) under the provisions of the DPCO 2013. There was an earlier DPCO