PRICES OF patented medicines in India, would be sold cheaper than their lowest international price. For this, India is working on a system, by which prices would be significantly lower than that in Canada, where the government negotiates with pharma companies to sell patented drugs at cheaper prices. The guidelines for such negotiation, which the chemicals and fertilisers ministry is working on, will translate these prices into probable Indian prices by taking into account the purchasing power of both the currencies.
In India, drugs that fight cancer and the body’s urge to reject an organ after a transplant, are the costliest ones, and would be the most likely candidates for mandatory negotiation. A committee appointed by the ministry to evolve guidelines in this regard, would meet a second time in early April to freeze the norms. It has already asked the body of MNC drug makers in India, the OPPI, to submit its suggestions.
The panel has three months to evolve the guidelines. Before negotiations start for a particular brand, for example, Lipitor, the top selling drug in the world, the government would identify the price of an inexpensive generic substitute for Lipitor in Canada. Then the premium Lipitor enjoys over the substitute would be calculated. This premium would be translated into rupee terms by considering the purchasing power of the currencies.
The starting price for negotiations would be the Indian price of the Liptor-substitute plus this premium. Canada’s lower prices attract a lot of Americans to cross the border just to buy medicines, a practice which MNCs have been lobbying to disallow for years in the US, where cost of medicines is an election issue. Price negotiation for monopoly drugs was first suggested by a panel chaired by Planning Commission’s principal advisor Dr Pronab Sen, which said that the government should rely on the price at which other governments purchase drugs in bulk. Alternatively, the reference price for negotiations, could be the premium a drug enjoys in the lowest priced international market added to the price of an alternative therapy in India, the panel had said.
courtesy:economictimes
No comments:
Post a Comment