NPPA fixes retail price of 68 drug formulations

Drug price regulator NPPA Friday fixed prices as well as revised ceiling and retail prices of 68 formulations, including those used for treatment of diabetes, blood pressure and HIV. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) said while the retail price of 55 scheduled formulations has been fixed, that of 10 has been revised. Further, the authority has also fixed ceiling prices of three scheduled formulations.

"NPPA has fixed/revised ceiling prices/retail prices of 68 formulations under Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013," it said in a notification.

NPPA fixes the ceiling price of essential medicines of Schedule I under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order (DPCO) 2013. In respect of medicines that are not under price control, manufacturers are allowed to increase the maximum retail price by 10 per cent annually.

The calculation for essential drugs is based on the simple average of all the medicines in a particular therapeutic segment with sales of more than 1 per cent.

Set up in 1997, the NPPA has been entrusted with the task of fixation/revision of prices of pharma products, enforcement of provisions of DPCO and monitoring of prices of controlled and decontrolled drugs.