The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has indicated that the prices of all essential medicines are likely to go up by nearly 2% from April 1. It has asked companies to submit the required documents to avail the annual price hike based on wholesale price index (WPI).
In an office memorandum issued on Wednesday, NPPA said,"As confirmed by the Economic Adviser (Ministry of Commerce & Industry), the annual change in the wholesale price index (WPI) works out as 1.97186% during the calendar year 2016 over the corresponding period in 2015," reported The Times of India.
The medicines which are part of the National List are directly controlled by the government which caps their ceiling prices at the simple average of all drugs in a particular segment with market share of at least 1%, the report adds.
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From cancer drugs to anti-retrovirals, the list includes 875 drugs used in treatment of diabetes, hypertension, hepatitis, kidney disorders etc. It also includes antibiotics, analgesics, stents and condoms.
The government regulates prices of all other medicines which are not in the list and companies are allowed to hike prices of such drugs by only up to 10 per cent in a year.
In 2015, the government had allowed pharmaceutical companies to hike rates of 509 essential medicines used for treating various ailments like diabetes, hepatitis and cancer by 3.84 per cent.
