Recently, the Indian government has cut down the prices for 41 commonly used medicines and six formulations which are related with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and other conditions.
Government Reduced The Prices For Essential Medicines
It appears that in this move the prices have been slashed for drugs meant for diabetes, body pain, cardiovascular conditions, liver issues, antacids, infections, and allergies, and for multivitamins, and antibiotics, under a notification from the Department of Pharmaceutical and National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).
So far, the country has over 10 crore diabetes patients, which makes it among the countries with the highest number of cases globally.
It is expected that this price reduction will hugely benefit patients who are dependent on medications and insulin.
According to the senior NPPA officials, “Changing prices of medicines and formulations is a kind of routine work for the regulatory body like NPPA. We ensure that there is a ceiling cap on medicines which are essential for the public and the cost remains affordable.”
How Does This Affect?
For instance, consider the drugs like dapagliflozin metformin hydrochloride, which is used for lowering blood glucose levels by decreasing glucose production in the liver, have been fixed at ₹16 for one tablet against ₹30 previously.
Besides this, the combinations such as budesonide and formoterol, which is used to control the symptoms of asthma and improve lung function, have been made more affordable with the price being slashed to ₹6.62 for one dose.
Similarly Hydrochlorothiazide tablets, which are used to lower blood pressure, will come for ₹10.45 for one tablet against ₹11.07 now.
For the drugs like Ceftazidime and avibactam (as sodium salt) powder for infections, its prices have been fixed at ₹1,569.94 for one vial against ₹4000.
The move has also affected the Antacid antigas gel prices which are also cheaper now as its retail price has been fixed at ₹0.56 per 1 ml from ₹2.57, as mentioned in the NPPA notice.
It appears that this revision in ceiling and retail prices follows the NPPA’s announcement of a 0.00551% increase in prices of drugs on the National List of Essential Drugs (NLEM).
Again, it is based on changes in the wholesale price index (WPI).
The decision to reduce the prices of the essential drugs was taken during the 143rd meeting of the NPPA,which is a regulatory body that sets pharmaceutical prices.
Prior to this, the NPPA had reduced the prices of 69 medicines used in diabetes and hypertension at the start of this year.
You can check the full list of medicines right here.
