Drug policy before cabinet soon: Paswan

Ram Vilas Paswan, union minister for chemicals and fertilisers, today said a final pricing policy of drugs would be placed before the cabinet for approval by the end of this month or early next month.

"We have had meetings with the pharmaceuticals industry organisations on various issues regarding the price control order in the last two days based on the draft recommendations of the task force headed by Pronab Sen," Paswan said.

"We have given them one week's time to come back with their recommendations on the price control issue," he added.

The minister said that once the ministry finalises the drug price control policy, it would approach the cabinet for approval by the end of this month or  next month.

"We don't want the industry to suffer, but we also want to see that drugs are available at an affordable price as per our commitment underlined in the common minimum programme of the UPA governmnt," he said.

Paswan said industry had reservations on the issues of the proposed price control through ceiling prices of essential drugs and debranding of selected medicines.

The industry also had reservations on the constitution of National Authority on Drugs and Therapeutics (NADGT) as they desired to keep price control out of NADT, he added.

"The government should not put a curb on pricing and status quo should be maintained," Ajay Piramal, chairman of Nicholas Piramal who led a CII delegation to meet the minister, said.