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Drug price cut doctored, of no use
Published on Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 08:13, Updated on Fri, Nov 03, 2006 at 08:55 in India section
Tags: Medicines, Ram Vilas Paswan , New Delhi
New Delhi: The Ministry for Chemicals and Fertilisers recently announced that the prices of 886 medicines would be cut down by two to 74 per cent by the manufacturing companies.
Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ram Vilas Paswan made this announcement a few days ago.
On the surface of it, the decision appears to be a major step towards making healthcare more affordable, but does it really help everyone?
Not really for investigations by CNN-IBN reveal that most of the 886 drugs mentioned on Paswan's list are rarely recommended by physicians.
Says Senior Consultant, Fortis Hospital, Dr Anup Mishra, "Out of the medicines mentioned on the list, doctors prescribe just about 10-15 per cent."
Adds former professor, AIIMS, Dr G P Dureja, "These contain many irrational combinations, which have been rejected by our research team. Reducing prices of these combinations is of no significance."
Also for some of the medicines, the price cut is nothing short of ridiculous.
Sample this, the Emitol injection - drug number 661 in the list - is priced at Rs 4.99 paise.
After the price cut , it would cost Rs 4.98 paise. A saving of one paisa. How far can such cuts benefit the common man is not very difficult to guess.
MEDICINES FOR MASSES | |
 | The new pricing system - with the label bearing the maximum retail price inclusive of local taxes - had come into effect from October 2 but the Government has allowed one month's grace for replacing the stocks that retailers had with them. |
| It has come into effect to check wholesalers and retailers, who earlier pocketed a neat 200 per cent margin over the manufacturing cost of non-branded and generic medicines. |
| Paswan says that the Government is working out a formula for fixing the prices of branded medicines to make them more affordable, while protecting the interests of companies pursuing research and drug development activities. |
| A new legislation - Drugs (Prices Regulation and Control) Act - has been proposed. It would have more effective control on prices, production, distribution and supply of medicines, he added. |
| The attempt to control prices of generic medicines and make them more affordable is the first in a series of attempts to bring healthcare within easy reach of poor people, Paswan said. |
(With inputs from Deepak Bajpai)
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