Medicine will also be expensive from April month

 

After petrol, diesel and gas prices, the prices of essential medicines will go up in April.

• The pharma industry is planning to raise prices by 20 per cent

•  This growth permit is very low- pharma industry

•  The import price of APIs has been steadily rising

The price of essential medicines, including painkillers, antiinfectives, cardiac and antibiotics, will rise in April. The government has allowed pharmaceutical companies to change prices on the basis of the Annual Wholesale Price Index (WPI). The Drug Price Regulatory, National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority said on Friday that the government has notified a 0.5 per cent annual change in WPI for 2020.

An increase in the prices of scheduled medicines in accordance with the Annual WPI is allowed by the Director of Drugs every year. According to sources, companies are not excited about this growth. According to him, the manufacturing cost has gone up by about 15-20 per cent and the pharma industry is planning to increase prices by 20 per cent but it remains to be seen how much it can increase.

This growth permit is very low- pharma industry

According to a pharma industry executive, we think this growth permit is too low. During the epidemic the industry has been affected by the rise in prices of other materials, including packaging materials, towards raw materials. Our plan is for the government to increase it soon.

China increased the prices of inputs by 10-20 percent

Most of the pharma ingredients for cardio vascular, diabetes, antibiotics, anti-infective and vitamin manufacturers are imported from China. While the dependence on China for some active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) is about 80-90 percent. The cost of Indian pharmaceutical imports soared in China last year due to supply problems caused by the corona. Since then, China has increased its input prices by 10-20 per cent when supply starts in mid-2020.

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The import price of APIs has been steadily rising

Currently the government has increased the price of heparin injection and extended it till September 2021. This is used in the treatment of covid 19. The government had in June last year allowed a 50 per cent price hike on heparin on the appeal of several companies to increase the cost of APIs on imports from China. This permission was granted under the Drugs Price Control Order 2013. The companies also said that regulated prices have declined over the years. While the import price of API has been steadily increasing.

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