How unfortunate it is that India who is
called the ‘Pharmacy of the Developing World’ is not equipped-well at home to
procure decent health facilities for its vast majority of population. Good
number of people in this country becomes the victim of death knell simply
because they are not provided with adequate medical attention. Only handful of
the people has access to those top-class medical services which India likes
to boast of. Poor can’t take advantage of these expensive medical amenities and
end up in Govt. hospitals, mostly devoid of doctor and dose. How shameful it is
that a good chunk of India can’t even afford to get sick!
In the backdrop of this sorry state of
the nation, it is surely a commendable step taken by Gov. to allow reducing the
prices of essential medicines. Recently Govt. has passed a long-pending bill
named “National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy (NPPP 12), concerned with the
price control of 348 drugs enlisted in National List of Essential Medicine
(NLEM). Once implemented, the prices of these medicines will go down by 50-70%.
For the first time the cost of imported drugs, like insulin imported by Eli Lilly
and Novo Nordik, has also been kept in its purview. Only new drug discoveries,
new drug delivery systems (NDDS) and those which get their first patent in
India will be exempted from price control for five years. Hence the new
drug policy secures the sanctity of patent drugs and new inventions and at the
same time protects the interests of those many people who can’t avail costly
medicines.
Indian Pharma Industry is one of the
fastest growing pharmaceutical markets in the world. It is world's fourth-largest
in terms of volume and stands 14th in terms of value. The profitability of
pharmaceutical industry will be reduced to some extent due to new drug policy
but it won’t be as serious as being projected. A preliminary working
shows that prices of many leading brands will be slashed by 50 per cent to 80
per cent. This will reduce industry's profit by Rs 4,000 crore on
domestic sale of Rs 67,500 crore per annum. Indian Pharma sector is growing at over 16%
because of the strong growth in chronic segment in the domestic market. It is
definitely a booming sector. India has the highest number of pharmaceutical manufacturers
in the world: over 20,000. It must also be noted that price reduction
will result into volume expansion and it can very well balance possible profit erosion due to price reduction of medicines.
Another criticism of NPPP 12 is that if
profitability of pharma companies will spiral down, there would be less money
to put in Research & Development. “In the past decade, the pharma sector
has been spending more and more on R&D activities, while the returns have
been minimal,” said D.G. Shah, secretary general of Indian Pharmaceutical
Alliance (IPA) in an interview. However, It is a convenient and safest argument
on the part of pharma companies sitting on high reserves.
A public health group AIDAN has filed a
PIL in Supreme Court to bring down the prices of essential medicines. Hearing of the case is likely to happen in the second week of Jan 2013. By then Govt.
might come up with new prices for all 348 drugs enlisted in NLEM. It is mandatory
to not let pharma companies reign over this sector. Medicine is the ONLY
commodity, purchasing of which is not decided by purchaser but by prescriber.
One can imagine the grave scenario in the event of cartelization between producer and prescriber or for that matter among the companies
themselves. Truly justified it is on the part of Govt. to intervene as 'health for all' is the fundamental duty of a welfare state.
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