Keeping its word to make drugs affordable to consumers, the government on Thursday announced caps on margins on the sale of pharmaceutical products.
The wholesale margins should not exceed 15 per cent while the retail sales should not exceed 35 per cent for generic drugs, Union Chemicals and Fertiliser Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said.
He said the government had also fixed the cap on margins for branded and other branded generic drugs. For these categories of drugs, the margin should not exceed 150 per cent of the production cost, he said.
Official in the ministry said the decision of the government would help in making drugs "more affordable" to the consumers - one of the promises of the UPA's common minimum programme.
"Earlier, there were no caps on margins and some drug makers were even charging 1,000-2,000 per cent, which made the medicines out of reach of many consumers," the official said, adding there were lot of complaints against the high margins.
He said the cap on margin should bring down the cost of some of the generic drugs.
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