Alleging rampant malpractices in the existing pricing system of the medicines that leaves patients high and dry, a group of health experts from the Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) has suggested that all medicines must bear the cost price and minimum retail price (MRP) so as to make the profit margin transparent and help reduce out of pocket expenditure.
“All the chemicals which are labeled as medicines should be included in the list of essential medicines because medicines are not a choice of the patient. They are decided by the doctors as per the requirement of a particular patient,” said Dr G S Grewal, former president of Punjab Medical Council (PMC) and member of the ADEH.
The ADEH members recently met Kamlesh Kumar Pant, Chairman of the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority (NPPA) in this regard and expressed concern that “as out of pocket expenditure on drugs is a major spending on the healthcare, it is important that the prices of medicines/medical devices are streamlined and exorbitant trade margin is taken off.”
They also brought to the notice of the NPPA head about the recent concerns of the Supreme Court, “as highlighted in the case of pricing of ‘Dolo’ that has affirmed the seriousness of the issue. “The issues in concern are trade margins in drugs, price of Generic Vs Branded drugs and MRP vs basic price,” pointed out Dr Arun Mitra from ADEH and former chairman of the ethical committee of the PMC. In some cases the same salt is sold at much different prices under different trade names. There is an exorbitant difference between the basic price of the drug and MRP in the case of generic (branded generics), Dr Mitra added. "This is totally unjustified and promotes malpractice.
The generics sold in our country are in fact branded generics, Dr Grewal chipped in, adding that all the branded medicines should be sold with the chemical/pharmacological name only. “The name of the company is mentioned on the cover separately. There should be no trade names,” asserted Dr Grewal.