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Meera Mohanty

New Delhi, Nov. 26 The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority’s (NPPA) increased market surveillance has led to demand notices worth Rs 736 crore being sent to manufacturers of scheduled drugs for charging above the Government notified prices during the current fiscal year.

This amounts to almost half of what the Government regulatory body has claimed from the industry since its inception in 1997. The 86 violations in the first eight months of this fiscal (compared to about 40-50 in each previous year) contribute to only a part of these dues. The rest comes from NPPA’s success in vacating judicial stay orders, and updating the dues which draw a 15 per cent interest.

Most of the 460 cases are sub judice. Only Rs 101 crore has been received by NPPA. However, that does not seem to have discouraged the Authority.

Acting suo motu, the authority has collected 658 samples of formulation packs from 12 cities over the last five months. On prima face basis the NPPA is expecting to find 33 per cent of these violating Para 13 of DPCO Act, which pertains to charging consumers more than the notified price. Twenty two per cent of these could be in the market without the required price approvals. Another 70 sample are being analysed. The Authority is also pursuing complaints received from NGOs and consumers more seriously and investigating complaints about 479 formulation packs.

Last year the industry had volunteered to reduce margins of 886 formulations while it demanded that the Government reconsider the contentious issue of extension of price control to 354 drugs, from the current 74 under control, in the proposed Pharma Policy 2007. The NPPA claims it has found 55 formulation packs amongst this list alone overcharging and is believed to have issued nearly 30 ‘demand notices’ totalling to about Rs 4.3 crore.

More Stories on : Pharmaceuticals | Regulatory Bodies & Rulings

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