Arora takes up issue of affordability of cancer drugs in Rajya Sabha
Keeping in view the importance and sensitivity of the issue of affordability of cancer drugs, MP (Rajya Sabha) from Ludhiana Sanjeev Arora has taken up this issue in the recently concluded winter session of Rajya Sabha. He said he decided to take up this issue in Rajya Sabha because this issue is affecting people in every village and city because cancer disease is gripping people very speedily across the country.
City Air News
Dec 22, 2023 02:14
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Ludhiana, December 22, 2023: Keeping in view the importance and sensitivity of the issue of affordability of cancer drugs, MP (Rajya Sabha) from Ludhiana Sanjeev Arora has taken up this issue in the recently concluded winter session of Rajya Sabha. He said he decided to take up this issue in Rajya Sabha because this issue is affecting people in every village and city because cancer disease is gripping people very speedily across the country.
Arora asked about the steps being taken by the Ministry concerned to make cancer drugs cheaper and affordable for all. Answering to his question, the Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers Bhagwanth Khuba stated that National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) under the aegis of Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) fixes the ceiling price of medicines specified in the Schedule-I of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013 (DPCO, 2013). All manufacturers of scheduled medicines (branded or generic) have to sell their products within the ceiling price (plus applicable Goods and Service Tax) fixed by the NPPA.
Further, the Minister replied that NPPA has fixed the ceiling price of 131 anti-cancer scheduled formulations included in Schedule-I of the DPCO, 2013 under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) 2015 and NLEM, 2022. Ceiling prices of 112 formulations fixed under NLEM, 2022 resulted in reduction of around 22.69% in ceiling price of these 112 anti- cancer formulations.
The Minister further mentioned in his reply that also, NPPA vide order dated 27th February 2019, put a cap of 30% Trade Margin on 42 selected non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines under the ‘Trade Margin Rationalization’ approach. This led to the reduction in the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of 526 brands of these medicines by up to 90% and resulted in annual savings of around Rs.984 crores to the patients.
Further, as per the provisions of DPCO the ceiling price of scheduled medicines is revised annually on the basis of the Wholesale Price Index. In the case of non-scheduled formulation, no manufacturers can increase MRP by more than 10% of MRP during the preceding 12 months.
Regarding Arora’s question, whether there have been instances where the same company is selling the same salt drug at different prices under different names, the Minister categorically replied “yes.”
Meanwhile, it may be mentioned here that Punjab registered 40,235 cancer cases in the year 2022.
