Context:
Recently, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has brought 44 new drugs under price control.
About Drug Price Control
- Drug (Prices Control) Order (DPCO), 2013: Prices of drugs in India are regulated as per provisions of Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, by NPPA, under the aegis of Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP).
- Role of DPCO: It controls the prices of all essential medicines by fixing ceiling prices, limiting the highest prices companies can charge.
- National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) is drawn up to include essential medicines that satisfy the priority health needs of the population.
- NLEM is updated periodically by an expert panel set up under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
- It forms the basis of price controls under the DPCO.
- Role of NPPA: It fixes the ceiling price of scheduled medicines.
- It also fixes retail price of ‘new drugs’ for existing manufacturers of scheduled formulations.
- For non-scheduled formulations, a manufacturer is at liberty to fix its maximum retail Ppice (MRP) but cannot increase the same by more than 10% of what was prevalent during the preceding 12 months.
News Source: Livemint
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