The Hindu Business Line : Commitment to SC on essential drugs must be kept: Paswan

Complying with order: The Minister for Chemicals & Fertilisers, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, and the Assocham President, Mr Anil K. Agarwal, at a conference on pharma industry in the Capital on Tuesday. - Ramesh Sharma

New Delhi , Nov. 14

The Government would have to comply with the Supreme Court order to make essential medicines available to the poor, the Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, reiterated on Tuesday, asking the industry to do the same.

The Minister was inaugurating a conference on the Indian pharma industry organised by Assocham. On behalf of the Government, Mr Paswan made a commitment to take healthcare spending from 0.9 per cent to 2-3 per cent of the GDP in the next five years, and help the industry grow from $12 billion to $20-25 billion in five years.

The Government will also increase tax benefits for R&D in the National Pharmaceutical Policy that is being finalised. Ms Satwant Reddy, Secretary, Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals, said that the Government was giving a final shape to a working group that would draft assistance schemes to encourage the pharma industry's growth. The Government would seek an additional budgetary allocation to implement these in the 11th Plan.

Drug price control

However, it was the issue of drug price control that over-shadowed the conference. The Minister pointed out that only 11 companies had honoured their commitment to reduce generic drug prices. He also added that if the industry representatives and association could not make commitments on behalf of all the players, then there might not be any point in having a dialogue with them. The Minister also questioned the rationale of the industry in keeping such a huge difference in prices between the generic and the branded versions of the same formulations.

On behalf of the industry, Dr Swati Piramal, Director, Nicholas Piramal, asked the Minister to take into consideration that the "pharmaceutical industry was a fragmented one with no single major player and that even the biggest of companies had only a 3-4 per cent market share." The major players, she said, had volunteered and implemented the price changes at their factories. The industry also asked the Government to look into the issue of spurious drugs more urgently, since it reflected badly on the entire industry.

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