It said the move was aimed at enhancing accessibility and affordability of essential medicines for the poor and needy.“The government has been actively interacting with the industry and other stakeholders on these issues.Any impression regarding tightening of price control is both misleading and misplaced,” Virat Majboor, deputy director (media & communications) in the ministry of chemicals & fertilizers, said in an email to ET. The department is a wing of the ministry.The department said it is not considering changes to the method of calculating ceiling prices of new drugs under price control. “We expect that the DoP also confirms that this proposal is not under consideration as such a move will expand the span of price control, discourage competition and jeopardise growth of the industry. However, some of the moves haven’t worked as intended.After stent prices were cut, some hospitals reportedly increased service charges to offset the loss of margins and a few companies withdrew their products from India.India’s $15 billion generic drug industry has witnessed a long period of slow growth as price cuts and bans on fixed-dose combination drugs halted the double-digit expansion of a few years ago. The implementation of the goods and services tax on July 1 further slowed growth to 3.7% in the six months to September from 12% a year earlier, according to research firm AWACS.

Source: Economic Times October 22, 2017 19:18 UTC