The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had its “how’s the josh” moment when it received a back-handed compliment of sorts in Budget 2019.

Taking credit for lower medicine and medical device prices, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said, “Lakhs of poor and middle class people are also benefiting from reduction in the prices of essential medicines, cardiac stents and knee implants, and availability of medicines at affordable prices through Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadhi Kendras.”

This comes at a time when certain Central Government initiatives seem to undermine the NPPA’s role. Last month, the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers said that the list of medicines for price control would be recommended to the NPPA by a committee housed in the Government’s think tank, the NITI Aayog. In most cases, the NPPA acts on the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), after it receives its approval from the Health Ministry and the Department of Pharmaceuticals.

The NPPA has in the past stirred a hornet’s nest by bringing all drugs mentioned in the NLEM under price control. The net was, then, cast wider as the NPPA stringently monitored drugs outside the NLEM and initiated steps to control the price on medical devices as well. In a pathbreaking effort the first crackin trade margins on medical devices was made when the NPPA brought cardiac stents under price control, followed later by knee implants.

In an odd turn of events though, even as the Government takes credit for bringing-in these patient-oriented efforts, the regulatory authority saw repeated changes at its top over the last few years. It was a tenure of a little over two years for former NPPA chief Bhupendra Singh who brought down cardiac stent prices by slashing the trade margins that the industry had enjoyed. His predecessor who brought medicine prices under scrutiny was moved out of the NPPA in less than a year. There have been two more appointments after Singh as well.

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