The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up the Centre over the significant gap between the maximum retail price (MRP) of medicines and the prices at which retailers purchase them, questioning the government’s oversight of drug pricing in the country.
The Centre, which had earlier come under severe criticism from the top court for steep markup of cancer drugs by hospitals, said that the government has taken an important decision to cap the trade margin on anti-cancer drugs at 30 per cent of the MRP, which is expected to result in annual savings of approximately ₹ 2,500 crore to patients.
Hearing two petitions that raised concerns over medicine pricing, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta questioned why the system appeared to favour pharmaceutical manufacturers and asked whether such practices should be allowed to continue unchecked, according to PTI. During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, appearing for the Centre, told the court that the government’s policy was “that the entire ecosystem is not to be controlled”. In an earlier matter heard on October 12, the top court had said the Centre’s response on capping the trade margin of anti-cancer drugs at 30 per cent of the maximum retail price (MRP) was “hardly anything to be happy about” and questioned why the government cannot cap trade margins of other medicines.
