Price ceiling on 314 drugs likely

Sticking to its recommendations of de-branding essential drugs and a single regulatory authority for drug pricing, the Pronab Sen Task Force on Tuesday  submitted its final report to Chemical and Fertilisers Minister Ramvilas Paswan suggesting price ceilings for 314 drugs.

"The report recommends price ceiling for 314 medicines that fall under essential drugs. It would be worked out on the weighted average of top three brands of a drug by value as on April 1, 2005," Task Force chairman Pronab Sen said while submitting the report in New Delhi.

Out of 354 drugs recommended in its draft report submitted last month, the committee now proposes to bring 314 drugs under price ceiling as 40 items are normally procured only by the hospitals, he said.

Price regulation should be done on the formulations and not on the bulk drugs, he said. Sen, however, said two regulatory bodies for monitoring quality and price have been recommended till the proposed system of a single regulatory authority under the name of National Authority on Drugs and Therapeutics takes shape.

"In due course of time, we should have single regulatory authority for drug control. Meanwhile, we can have two bodies one each from the health ministry and chemical and fertilisers ministry that would take care of quality and price of the drugs respectively," Sen said.