(i)A presentation by Dr. Samit Sharma, an IAS officer who has pioneered efforts to ensure better availability of generic medicines amongst the people during his stints at Chittorgarh and Nagpur. One limb of Dr. Sharma’s efforts involved convincing doctors to prescribe generic equivalents of branded drugs by removing false notions of the inferior quality of generic drugs drugs. His other efforts concentrated on involving government co-operative medicinal stores in the procurement of generic medicines through open tender. As a result of such combined efforts Dr. Sharma was able to drastically bring down medical costs in the districts under him. One example cited by the Committee is in regards seven days treatment therapy for pneumonia, the cost of which was reduced from Rs. 1136 to Rs. 139.51. It was estimated that a sum of Rs. 6.05 crores was saved by treating over 4.03 lakh patients with generic drugs over a period of 6 months. The Committee also noted that such efforts were being succesfully replicated in Bihar & Tamil Nadu.
(ii)It urged the Government to step in and address the issue of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority not having any control over the prices of patented drugs which according to the Committee are ‘exorbitant’.
(iii)The committee also observed how the pharmaceutical companies are changing the ingredients of their brand name drugs in order to evade price-control and proceeds to give a long list of such drugs.
(iv)The committee was also ‘shocked’ to note that only a ‘pathetic’ 74 drugs were under the ambit of price control. Not only has the committee strongly recommended that more drugs be included under the Drug Price Control Order, it has also asked to be kept informed on the progress made by the Government on this front.
(v)As an alternative to the above the committee strongly recommended the capping of profit margins of all medicines irrespective of whether or not they are under the DPCO. According to the committee this would solve several of the problems faced by the NPPA. The Committee also indicated that it wanted to be kept informed about the Government’s progress in this regard.
(vi)Lastly, the committee was worried about the ramifications of foreign capital buying out Indian pharmaceutical companies and the effect that this would have on the cost of medicines in the future. It has therefore asked the Government to come up with policy options to ensure that major Indian pharmaceutical companies remained in the hands of the Indians.
All in all I must comment that this was a well written report regardless of whether I agree with its contents.
