Union Government is attempting to make the prices of essential medicines affordable.
But actually price curbs deters producers and turns a burden to the patients.
What are the steps in this regard?
The government had extended the scope of essential medicines by bringing a larger number of them under price control list.
It also imposed a cap on the prices of medical implants; first coronary stents and then knee implants.
On the drugs front, the government made it mandatory for doctors to prescribe medicines using generic names.
Now it is considering limiting the number of brands of a drug a company can manufacture and also ending contract.
What are the concerns with these?
Government's measures on price control is driving some foreign manufacturers of implants to withdraw some products from the Indian market.
The government refused the withdrawal permission for six months and extending it further.
An US pharma manufacturer has taken a $10 million on sales of knee implants as a result of price control in India.
US trade representative has cut duty concessions to Indian imports into the US, in response to India capping cardiac stents and knee implant prices.
After the initial price controls on implants, there has been overpricing in other critical cardio devices, patients are paying up to five times the imported cost of these devices.
The move on prescribing medicine on its chemical names is helping the chemist to sell a product of a company which offers them high margins.
What measures are desired?
The government needs to upload all the trade transactions of the chemist on a central portal.
This will make transparent what is being sold at what price and who has manufactured it.
There is a need to have a multilayered and extensive public health service in order to contain private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres.
The public agency can procure in bulk at a negotiated price and do the job of price control at a fraction of the cost and paperwork of direct price control.
Operational and governance-related waste can be reduced by transparent and efficient public procurement of pharmaceuticals.
