The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday informed that the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has revised the ceiling prices of eight scheduled drugs that are used for treatment of several diseases including Asthma, Glaucoma, Thalassemia, and Tuberculosis.The prices of these drugs were revised to meet the twin objectives of availability and affordability, it said.

Stating that the mandate of NPPA is to ensure availability of essential drugs at affordable prices and ensuring affordability without jeopardising access to such medicines, the Ministry said, “The essential drugs must remain available to address the public health needs of the country and their price regulation should not lead to a situation where these drugs become unavailable in the market.”

“NPPA has been receiving applications from the manufacturers for upward revision of prices citing various reasons like increased cost of active pharmaceutical ingredients, increase in the cost of production, change in exchange rate etc, resulting in unviability in sustainable production and marketing of drugs. Companies have also applied for discontinuation of some of the formulations on account of their unviability,” it said.

The Ministry further informed that after detailed deliberations in the Authority meeting held on 8th October, invoking extraordinary powers under Para 19 of the DPCO, 2013, and in larger public interest, the NPPA has approved increase in the ceiling prices of 11 scheduled formulations of eight drugs by 50 per cent of their current ceiling prices.

Most of these drugs are low-cost and generally used as first line treatment crucial to the public health programmes of the country. These drugs are used for treatment of Asthma, Glaucoma, Thalassemia, Tuberculosis, mental health disorders, etc, it said.

“Formulations for which ceiling prices have been revised include: Benzyl Penicillin 10 lakh IU injection, Atropine injection 06.mg/ml, Streptomycin powder for injection 750 mg and 1000 mg, Salbutamol tablet 2 mg and 4 mg and respirator solution 5 mg/ml, Pilocarpine two per cent drops, Cefadroxil tablet 500 mg, Desferrioxamine 500 mg for injection, and Lithium tablets 300 mg,” the Ministry said in a statement.

Earlier such extraordinary powers have been invoked by NPPA in 2019 and in 2021 whereby price of 21 and 9 formulations respectively were increased by 50 per cent so as to ensure continued availability of essential drugs for the public, it said.