In a bid to bring some relief to cancer patients, the government is planning to regulate the price of prohibitively expensive oncology medication.
The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, which regulates the prices of medicines, has identified around 70 anti-cancer drugs, including anti-breast cancer medication Letrozole and anti-blood cancer drug Imatinib, for detailed price analysis.
Multinational pharmaceutical firms Novartis and Roche and domestic players Sun and Cipla are among the leading anti-cancer drug suppliers in the country.
The NPPA's findings could result in a proposal to its administrative ministry of chemicals and fertilisers for follow up action leading to a mechanism to check the prices of some of these medicines. However, that will not be an easy process.
The 15-year-old Drug Price Control Order -- notified under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 -- that governs the NPPA, does not list anti-cancer medication among the drugs whose prices need to be fixed.
Invoking the 'public interest' clause in the DPCO may also be difficult as anti-cancer medication often escapes the turnover and monopoly criteria needed to bring drugs under direct price control.
However, the NPPA exercise aims to find a way to regulate anti-cancer medication within the existing rules.
According to a government official, the ministry has powers under the DPCO to instruct the NPPA to bring any drug under the price control.
"If there is a strong case in favour of price control, the government can do it," the official said.
The move assumes significance in the backdrop of a recent discussion paper released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, which suggested a 'near non-accessibility' of medicines to a vast majority of the affected population because of their high cost.
The DIPP note points out that around 2.5 million people in the country suffer from various forms of cancer at any point of time.
"It is estimated that every year, about 700,000 people are detected with different types of cancer. Most of them are unable to afford the cost of expensive anti-cancer medicines.
"Going by a conservative estimate of (the) average cost of anti-cancer medicines per patient as Rs 25,000 per annum, it would require medicines worth Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion).
"As against this, the present turnover of this segment of medicines in India is estimated to be only Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion)," the DIPP discussion note had stated.
It also said that the 'big gap' in the sales figures indicates the sheer inaccessibility of these medicines to a majority of patients.
In addition to NPPA, the department of pharmaceuticals is working on a model to negotiate the price of patented medicines -- including new generation anti-cancer drugs -- before they are introduced in the Indian market.
The draft pharmaceutical policy, which is to be considered by a group of ministers headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, is also exploring ways to rein in prices when it comes to anti-cancer drugs.
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