Govt panel for ceiling on prices of patented cancer medicines

New Delhi, January 27 

In order to cut prices of patented medicines for cancer and rare diseases, a high-level government panel has made a series of far reaching recommendations including granting “compulsory license” to any Indian pharma company to produce drugs without the consent of the patent holding firms.

The report also recommended putting a ceiling price on life-saving medicines after analysing the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) of various countries, a standard followed in majority of the western world to fix medicine prices.

Multinational pharmaceutical companies sell most of the patented drugs in India and they have been vehemently opposing any sort of price cap or grant of compulsory licensing to any other company to produce drugs being sold by them.

The Indian pharmaceutical market has an annual turnover of around Rs 2.3 lakh crore. While majority of these revenues come from sales of generic drugs, around 30 per cent of it comes from patented drugs.  

The committee noted that the prices of patented anti-cancer and antifungal drugs are "on the higher side" and cited the example of Rs 1 lakh being the price for just one injection for cancer treatment. 

It said there is a need to moderate the prices of patented anti-diabetic drugs and also recommended that patent owning companies should be "encouraged" to give "voluntary licenses" to other pharmaceutical companies. Moreover, it has stated that the government should explore procurement of more drugs at lower rates for public health care systems.

“The committee after a detailed analysis has come to the conclusion that it is important to put in place an effective mechanism to regulate the prices of patented medicines in India,” the committee's report stated. — PTI