New Delhi, National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy (NPPP), 2012 prescribes the guidelines for regulation of prices of drugs. The key principles of price regulation are (i) essentiality of drugs (ii) control of prices of formulations and (iii) MarketBased Pricing. Based on NPPP, 2012 and subsequent Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013 (DPCO, 2013), National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) under the Department of Pharmaceuticals fixes the ceiling price of scheduled drugs specified in the first schedule of the DPCO, 2013 and monitors the prices of non-scheduled drugs.
NPPA has fixed the ceiling prices of scheduled drugs, including the essential medicines used for treatment of cancer, diabetes and HIV as well as heart and kidney diseases. Further, NPPA has put a cap on Trade Margin of 42 select non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines under ‘Trade Margin Rationalization (TMR)’ Approach resulting in reduction up to 90% of Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of526 brands of these medicines.
NPPA has also brought 106 non-scheduled anti-diabetic and cardiovascular drugs under price control by invoking extraordinary powers in public interest.The total annual savings on account of revision of ceiling prices of medicines under National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), price control of anti-diabetic & cardiovascular, fixation of ceiling price of stents, knee implants and capping of TMR on anti-cancer are estimated to the tune of Rs. 12,500 crore. NPPA monitors the ceiling price of the scheduled formulations to ensure that the MRP of such formulations are within the range of ceiling price and monitors non-scheduled formulations to ensure that their MRP does not increase by more than 10% during the preceding twelve months. The details of retail/ceiling prices fixed/revised by NPPA are available on NPPA’s website www.nppaindia.nic.in.
