Indian govt has warned to pharmaceutical industry of the country not to pull back on the commitments it has made to decrease essential drugs' prices .
Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan, Chemical & Fertilizer minister of India, has warned pharma industry, not to pull back on the commitments it has made to decrease essential drugs' prices or else the govt. will not hesitate in taking tough actions against the defaulters. Minister also revealed that draft policy is likely to be finalized by the end of this month.
Mr. Paswan has blamed the Indian pharmaceutical industry of not living up to its promise of reducing drug prices, uniform MRPs (Maximum Retail Prices) across the nation & bilingual labels.
He said, "There is a big gap between reasonable & affordable prices in India where nearly 30 Million people are below poverty line," and asked the industries to show "more heart."
The issue again came into limelight after govt. charged the pharma industry with 'breach of trust' for not reducing their prices on generic drugs that are manufactured post October 2, 2006.
India pharmaceutical industry is quite irate after the announcement. Nicholas Piramal director, Swati Piramal defended the pharma industry and said that they hadn't backed out on their assurance. They're expecting generic drug prices to decline by January 2006 and, thus, asking the govt. to give some more time to the industry.
As per Swati, India is stuck on old practices while the world is looking forward to issues like promoting health insurance rather than controlling drug prices.
RLL's (Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited) executive director Ramesh Adige had a similar opinion. According to him, the industry never said that it wouldn't cut the prices. While large firms have announced reduction, over 20,000 firms are there in India the manufacture drugs. The govt. may consider disclosing guidelines but shouldn't enforce any notification.
"It's a blame game that's going on between govt. & industry. While private sector fears nationalization & slowness of the industry, govt. is thinking in terms of public interest," said an analyst at RNCOS.
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