Doctors term governments order on drug price control as an eye wash

Ludhiana, July 28, 2017: The Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Healthcare (ADEH) has termed the order of the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Government of India dated June 2017 to control drug prices as an eye wash. Basic purpose of the government should be to streamline and cut down the exorbitant profit by the pharma companies to bring down price of drugs so as to make them affordable. This is important because India is signatory to various international treaties including the Alma Ata declaration where the government is committed to provide health care to all. Shying away from its responsibility to control the soaring drug prices the ministry has tried to project that the high cost of drugs is only due to the nexus between health providers and pharma companies. This is factually incorrect. High drug prices are due to faulty trade policy of the government for the pharma sector. The government has no mechanism to bring down the margin of profit in drugs which is sometimes up to 700 % – 800 %. There is no policy of fixing the drug prices based on cost accountancy. The actual price and the MRP difference is very high. In this order emphasis is only on the uniform code of pharmaceutical marketing practices (UCPMP) which has been voluntary till date. The government has been sleeping over it for two years. This order prohibits the pharma companies from giving freebies and expensive gifts to the health providers. But the order does not include the medical appliances! The pharma companies however can sponsor activities by the associations whereby the government has given loophole to the companies to spend money on the promotion of their product. The drugs are not consumer products to be purchased by the people on their own will. They are to be used only on the medical advise. The question of promotion of pharmaceutical products is therefore unethical. What the government should do is to formulate a trade policy for pharma sector with 10% margin for the dealer and 20% for the retailer and the price should be mentioned accordingly on the label of the drugs.
AS this order does not include the medical appliances, this means that the pharma companies can continue to sell the appliances at high price. In a letter written to the minster of Chemicals and fertilizers Shri Anant Kumar Dr G S Grewal-member core committee of the ADEH and Dr Arun Mitra-Sr. Vice President Indian Doctors for Peace and Development (IDPD) have raised this issue and have questioned as to why the government is not serious over the trade policy for pharma sector. There should not be any promotional activity for the drugs as drug is not taken by choice. The claim of the government is hollow in the context because the government has decided to close down the public sector pharmaceutical units like IDPL, HAL etc. which produced cheap bulk drugs not only for our country but for several countries around the world. Moreover there should not be two separate lists – the essential and non essential drugs. All drugs are essential and they should be brought under drug price control order.