Moving drugs to Central list may increase prices: AIPPE

VELLORE: The proposed move by the Centre to amend the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940 to bring drugs under the Central list from the state list will entail increases in prices of drugs and also affect those involved in the trade, according to the Association of Indian Pharmaceuticals Progressive Entrepreneurs (AIPPE) Chennai regional head S Senthil Kumar.

Revealing this to DT Next, he said, “The move will affect nearly 500 small drug manufacturing companies in Tamil Nadu and another 1,000 marketing companies in the state. We will have to go to New Delhi every time we make a new formulation and even if we apply online for such permissions, doubts and queries raised will entail trips to the national capital which will only push up the prices of the drugs concerned.”

Now, we get such permits from the TN government or from Puducherry as the case may be. Getting permission locally is cheaper as it saves time and money. With each state (TN, Kerala, Karnataka, HP etc) having this facility, one department in New Delhi handling all queries from different states will only delay matters, he said.

However, Senthil Kumar said that quality of the same drug manufactured in different states might vary slightly. Asked about this, Vellore’s leading pharmaceutical distributor M Kalaiarasu said, “the government should either manufacture all generic drugs or ensure that they have uniform quality all over the country.”

This was because though generic drugs marketed by the Centre’s initiative in leading towns were cheaper by as much as 60 per cent, whether they had the same quality as that of branded varieties left a lot to be desired. On the proposed move to take drugs from the state to the central list, Kalaiarasu said, “The public will not have to worry as drug pricing is with the central government.”

However, Senthil Kumar said he hoped that the proposed move would be given up as it would affect the jobs of those in the marketing companies if the move went through.