AFFORDABLE DRUGS

 

AFFORDABLE healthcare is a right of every citizen of India. It is also the moral duty of the Government of the day to ensure universal health coverage to its citizens. It entails good medical facilities across spectrums and availability of essential medicines at cheaper rates. In this light, the reduction of retail prices of a wide range of essential drugs by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is a welcome step in achieving the goal of proper healthcare. The NPPA has asked leading pharmaceutical companies to make sure that formulations covering therapeutic categories like anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular, antibiotic, anti-diabetic and psychiatric medicines are available to people at cheaper rate.

 

The drug price regulator has also warned that non-compliance with the new rates would be punishable under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, and the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. These steps are expected to bring relief to consumers, particularly those managing chronic conditions. The price reduction is in line with the Centre’s target of making healthcare easily accessible to every strata of the society. High medicine prices have always been flagged as an impediment in realising this target. Though the government has introduced generic medicine stores and Jan Aushadhi Kendras to overcome this problem, many essential drugs continue to be bracketed in the higher price bracket. The latest reduction of prices of 35 such drugs comes as a good relief to consumers.

 

A lot many factors are responsible for high prices of essential drugs including the over-reliance on active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) from China. Though India has activated the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for domestically-produced APIs, the Chinese players are undercutting the competition in specific product categories. There is still no reduction in reliance on Chinese APIs to the desired extent. Unless this problem is tackled with a firm policy, it will keep affecting prices of essential drugs. The latest move by the Health Ministry through the NPPA should improve affordability and availability of essential drugs meant for critical ailments. It now needs to cover a wider group of medicines including those needed for cardio treatments, cancer treatment and other life-threatening ailments. Drugs and equipment required for treatment of these diseases are still very costly with almost no alternative to those. It directly inflates medical costs of a family if even one family member is afflicted by any of these diseases. Lack of proper medical care for these ailments in government-run institutes adds to the difficulty levels for a common man. In the goal of making available affordable healthcare, the Centre must factor in such critical problems like it is doing with reduction of retail prices of essential drugs.

 

The NPPA has a balancing act to do in controlling drugs prices, especially after external factors like American tariffs and India’s relations with China changing course. It has to make sure that essential drugs are readily available in the market and within the reach of the common man while also ensuring that the pharmaceutical companies are not taking unnecessary hit. Controlling price of APIs, incentives for bulk production and safeguarding pharma companies’ overseas market interests would determine the future course of prices of essential drugs in India. The Centre must take into account the fact that a large number of population still depends on Government’s healthcare schemes to get drugs for chronic conditions. Keeping price of these drugs within their reach is incumbent on the Government. The NPPA’s latest round of reduction of retail prices of essential drugs is a right step in this direction. It has to be welcomed.