Seminar on ‘Price Regulations: A 360 Degree Overview on its Impact on Availability and Accessibility’ held in New Delhi

PHD Chamber with DoP organise the seminar

PHD Chamber in association with Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers, Government of India recently organised a seminar on ‘Price Regulations: A 360 Degree Overview on its Impact on Availability & Accessibility’ in New Delhi.

Bhupendra Singh, Chairman, NPPA, Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers, Government of India was the Chief Guest at the inaugural session of the seminar. He said, “No complaints about shortage of stents even on my Whatsapp number which is public and I congratulate the industry for ensuring smooth supplies.”

Singh further said that a comprehensive health policy in conjunction with the pharma industry needs to be worked out in conjunction with the pharma industry and expressed that higher government spend on healthcare delivery is desirable but it itself cannot solve the problem of affordable healthcare for all.

He mentioned that NPPA also plays role in ensuring accessibility by rationalising the prices of the drugs in the market.

Anil Khaitan, Senior Vice President, PHD Chamber on this occasion said that IIM Ahmedabad has independently published a report highlighting that firms may exit a category under regulation due to low profit prospects and there was also a drop in R&D resulting in fewer new introductions of generic drugs and there has been reduced competitions since India expanded its list of priced-controlled medicines two years ago.

Khaitan added that many governments continue to intervene through some form of price regulations in the pharma market. While in the US, the pharma industry is highly unregulated, in Europe, the governments are actively involved in price regulation. The main argument in countries that favour price regulation is that neither the doctor nor the patients takes decisions based on the costs incurred. As these governments typically provide some form of universal healthcare, the government intervene in an attempt to reduce the healthcare expenses incurred. As a result of strict price regulations, pharma companies in the European Union attain lesser profits and stock returns, and invest lower R&D amounts compared to their US Counterparts as per Golec and Vernon 2010.

Nishant V Berlia, Chairman, Health Committee, PHD Chamber shared that the overall market share of priced-controlled medicines in India has been declining across therapies, falling from 78 per cent to 70 per cent between 2007 and 2015 and after the price control order was expanded two years ago, the sales volume of price controlled medicines had a compounded annual growth rate of five per cent compared with eight per cent for the same drugs prior to being added to the list in 2013.

The chamber also gave a copy of the Vision 2020 Document on medical devices to Singh, which was made by the chamber by getting all pharma and medical devices associations together on a simple platform.