India is a country where the requirement of medicines are so important that it has unfortunately become a necessity for every household to be consumed anyway. We have come to a verge where we are bound to be dependent on their usage from the period of adolescence to old-age.
But what if, this necessity becomes a serious challenge for commoners to be purchased due to the excessive hike in price! What could be a possible solution for this issue?
On 8th October 2024, The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) of India, which is responsible for regulating market prices of essential medicines, have recently increased the prices of 8 important medicines by 50 per cent, after an administrative meet.
As an outcome the working-class of the nation is worried about it, because these medicated drugs are often prescribed by doctors as first line of treatment for conditions such as syphilis, asthma, tuberculosis, glaucoma, thalassemia, and various complex mental conditions.
It was stated that, the administrative body of NPPA has been receiving applications from the manufacturers for upward revision of prices citing various reason like increased cost of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients; increase in the cost of production; change in exchange rate etc.; resulting in unviability in sustainable production and marketing of drugs.
Hence under Drug Prices Control Order DPCO, NPPA has approved an increase in the ceiling prices of eleven scheduled formulations of eight drugs which are:
(1) Lithium: A tablet mostly used for the treatment of several mental illnesses like mania and bipolar disorder.
(2) Salbutamol: Two tablet and one respirator solution formulation of this medicine is used to relieve respiratory symptoms in patients with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
(3) Cefadroxil: Anti-bacterial tablets that are used for treating infections of the skin, throat and urinary tract among others.
Streptomycin: Two powder formulations of this drug, which is an anti-bacterial used for the treatment of various infections, including tuberculosis
(4) Benzylpenicillin: It’s a powder used for injections for the treatment of several bacterial infections including pneumonia, diphtheria and syphilis.
(5) Pilocarpine: Drops of this drug are used for the treatment of eye conditions such as glaucoma (a condition where increased eye pressure leads to gradual loss of vision).
(6) Cefadroxil: It’s an anti-bacterial tablets that are used for treating infections of the skin, throat and urinary tract among others.
(7) Desferroxamine: A powder for injections that is used to treat iron overload in people with conditions such as thalassemia.
(8) Atropine: It is an injection that has various uses, like the treatment of certain poisoning, reducing saliva and fluids in the respiratory tract during a surgery, and more importantly it treats slow heart beat in emergency rooms.
As research suggests the reason behind this excessive rise in the price of the medicines are:
- Increasing cost of raw materials which are Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients,
- The “NPPA” tried to strike a balance between keeping the medicines affordable for patients and ensuring the manufacturers’ financial sustainability, which lead to a situation like this.
- Fluctuation and variation in currency exchange rates is a major reason that has increased the cost of importing raw materials, impacting overall production costs.
- From the manufacturer’s end, the previously existing price caps of the drugs were making it unviable to continue production due to losses, and now through the increase in prices of these medicated drugs, it is ensured that there are no shortages of those medicated drugs in the market.
In a developing country like India, where the economic flow is mostly partial and seasonal, these kind of raise in the price tags of essential medicinal drugs are definitely going to cause difficulty to the working-class people.
So we are hopeful that the administrative wing of the NPPA along with the Government would look into this matter which would be in favour of everyone.
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