In major news, the government has decided to cap trade margins at 30 per cent of MRP for all non-scheduled anti-cancer drugs, covering branded and generic, domestic and imported, patented and non-patented medicines.
According to government sources, the move addresses excessive trade mark-ups and aims to improve affordability while ensuring continued availability of these life-saving medicines.
The decision, expected to be implemented later this month, will lower prices for 110 anti-cancer drugs, including 35 patented medicines.
This comes after the Supreme Court raised serious concerns over the absence of price-control mechanisms for essential medicines and sought directions to ensure compliance and action against violators.
On September 22, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was hearing two petitions that raised drug-related issues. The bench expressed shock after noting that one drug carried an MRP of ₹27,000 despite being supplied to retailers for ₹2,700. The ten-fold difference prompted the SC to question the existing drug pricing framework and the protection available to patients.
"The primary aim of the trade margin rationalisation (TMR) is to prevent mis-selling malpractices. There is a tendency to sell drugs having a bigger margin, and since anti-cancer drugs are more expensive than the rest, we wanted to cap the trade margins on them," the sources said to PTI.
It has also been informed that the health department has constituted a committee to finalise the list of drugs, as the issue of pricing of other medicines needs a calibrated approach, PTI reported.
