Drug price regulator finds 4,700 medicines illegally over-priced

New Delhi: The national drug price regulator NPPA has warned of action against companies violating its pricing norms as it found prices of more than 4,700 medicines had increased beyond permissible limits.

Although over 95 per cent of stock keeping units of medicines were found to be complying with its order during an internal study.

According to the National Pharma Pricing Regulator (NPPA), of the 1,01,418 pharma stock keeping units observed, prices of 4,724 SKUs were found to have changed beyond permissible limit as per Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO) 2013.

It further said prices of 17,226 SKUs rose within the permissible limit as per as DPCO 2013.

While prices of 18,104 SKUs declined, there was no change in those of 60,998 SKUs as per the study conducted by NPPA in August last year. It found that 95.4 per cent of SKUs complied with the DPCO, 2013 from pricing perspective.

"After ascertaining status in respect of the cases observed for price violation from the manufacturers concerned, NPPA will take necessary action in such cases where price violation has been established under provisions of DPCO 2013," NPPA said.

The drug price regulator said out of the 4,724 SKUs, the prices of which have gone up in violation of the DPCO, 2013, 829 were scheduled SKUs while 3,895 were unscheduled SKUs.

Out of the total SKUs studied, 12,213 were scheduled SKUs while 88,811 were in the non-scheduled category, NPPA said.

NPPA's mandate is to fix/ revise the prices of controlled bulk drugs and formulations and to enforce prices and availability of the medicines in the country.