In a move aimed at improving transparency and giving patients a clearer picture of what hospitals pay for drugs and what they charge consumers, hospital pharmacies across Uttar Pradesh will have to prominently display the purchase and sale prices of medicines from November 1.
The directive is part of a wider transparency drive by the Uttar Pradesh Food Safety and Drug Administration (UPFSDA), which has also asked retail and hospital pharmacies to make key information about their operations publicly accessible online. Regional officers and drug inspectors have been directed to ensure compliance.
UPFSDA commissioner and secretary Roshan Jacob said the measure would give patients an additional basis for understanding the prices charged, instead of relying only on the printed maximum retail price (MRP).
The measures follow inspections of more than 200 pharmacies attached to 22 medical colleges and 30 government and private hospitals across the state, during which the department found wide disparities between procurement costs and prices charged to patients. UPFSDA commissioner Roshan Jacob has written to the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), seeking regulatory intervention over disparities of up to 67 times between procurement prices and prices charged for medicines, consumables, medical devices and nutraceuticals at hospital pharmacies. These details will have to be updated weekly.
Under the new system, hospital pharmacies will have to display price lists showing the actual purchase and sale rates of medicines. The move is particularly significant where patients have little practical choice but to buy medicines from a pharmacy operating within the hospital premises. The department has also directed retail pharmacies to create public websites displaying their drug licence number, details of the appointed pharmacist, licensed premises and stock information. The department has separately asked hospital pharmacies to make Price to Retailer (PTR) and Price to Consumer (PTC) information publicly available. It has highlighted a cost-plus model followed by some UP government medical colleges, under which patients are charged on the basis of actual procurement cost rather than the printed MRP.
