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A Group of Ministers (GoM) on National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy is likely to meet again on Friday.
The GoM, which met on Monday, decided to meet again to hear out stakeholders before starting internal deliberations from June.
“This is an ongoing process and we cannot take decisions everyday,” the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, told reporters.
He said the committee would deliberate after all the inputs are taken.
The ministerial panel, which is to consider cost plus profit pricing mechanism for 348 drugs that are listed as essential medicines by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, met with retail participants in the sector including the Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) and All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists.
The ministerial panel, headed by the Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, would make final recommendations to the Cabinet.
The proposal may also have to get a final nod from the Supreme Court that had initially directed the Government to formulate a policy to make essential medicines available and affordable to consumers.
“We have not started discussing the basic issues because we are giving opportunity to others. We have not started giving consent to any matter,” Mr Pawar said.
Good balance
He said the next meeting would also be just a hearing as there are many issues and one has to find a good balance. There are around seven lakh drug retail outlets in India and all have made some suggestions, he added.
The ministerial panel is likely meet with two non-government organisations and Member of Parliament, Ms Jyoti Mirdha, to hear their views, he said.
“Today, the medicines are doctors' driven, but we want it to be consumer driven. The doctors should give generic name of the medicines instead of their brand names,” Mr J. S. Shinde, President, All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists said.
Constituted in September 2009, the ministerial panel includes the Health and Family Welfare Minister, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Anand Sharma, and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in
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