Govt saves Rs 2,288 cr after fixing ceiling of 464 drug formulations

27 September, New Delhi

The government today said it has effectively saved Rs 2,288 crore after fixing the ceiling prices of 464 drug formulations.

Ceiling prices of 464 formulation (amounting to nearly 7000 different stock keeping units) have been fixed by the government after the announcement of National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), 2015 and Revised Schedule-I. This has resulted in effective savings to the consumers of the country Rs 2,288 crore by way of reduced prices, the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers said in a statement.

The statement also said a section of the media had recently published a news item, stating that prices of 100 drugs may increase by 10 per cent as they are now out of essentials list. The news item is misleading and is not in tune with the factual position.The Ministry added all the medicines as specified in the NLEM-2011 were brought under price control.

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare constituted a Core-Committee to revise the NLEM under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Department of Health Research and Y K Gupta, Professor and Head, Department of Pharmacology, AIIMS as the Vice Chairman.The committee evaluated the medicines on the objective criteria for inclusion and deletion. Based on the scientific criteria, Core Committee recommended inclusion of 106 medicines and deletion of 70 medicines from the earlier NLEM, 2011.

The Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy entails the price control of only schedule-1 medicines which are included in the NLEM. The medicines, which ceased to be part of NLEM, 2015 and Schedule-1, will only be monitored as non-scheduled medicines.

Non-scheduled medicines are allowed an increase of upto 10 per cent in the prices every year, which is monitored by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA