TN chemists request review of pricing of drugs

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Druggists and Chemists Association members urge the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority to intervene and regulate the pricing of the essential drugs for wholesale as they highlight high profit margin on the production and manufacturing cost of the drugs.

The high costs of drugs and lack of proper insurance coverage for the medicines limits the affordability of the drugs. A vast difference of pricing of drugs is noted when the cost of the drugs for the Prime Minister's Jan Aushadhi Yojana and the whole sale price is compared.

"The Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority can set the selling price of drugs to a significant extent, but due to the dual pricing system, the price of drugs is increasing, and the consumption capacity of the people is not changing. To eliminate these defects, the pricing of the drugs needs to be regulated," said S Ramachandran, past president and member, Tamil Nadu Druggists and Chemists Association.

The chemists continue to find the online pharmacies problematic as the Drugs and Cosmetics Act does not identify or allow online sale of drugs. However, the sale of drugs continues through various social media platforms and online platforms. Druggists request that the sale of drugs in any form through online platforms should be stopped and appropriate action should be taken in case of violations.

They also urge to reduce the GST on medicine to 5 percent to ensure that medicines are easily affordable for all. "Since the pricing of drugs is under the control of the Union government and the product pricing is under the control of the government, the GST tax should be implemented at the place of manufacture of the drugs," said Ramachandran.

The association members also request to categorise the fine and penalty for offences listed under the Drug Control Act as violations such as non-maintenence of records and others impacting the public directly have the same penalty and should be reviewed.

"Although the regulations state that the doctors should write the drugs under the generic name, the government has not insisted on following it and we request the same to be implemented so that drugs can be sold with their generic names itself," said another member of Tamil Nadu Druggists and Chemists Association.