Leading pharma companies, including GlaxoSmithkline, Pfizer and Ranbaxy, sell commonly used drugs at 10 times the cost of production, a study by the Corporate Affairs Ministry has found.
A study by the Cost Audit branch of the MCA found drugs such as Calpol manufactured by GlaxoSmithkline, Corex cough syrup by Pfizer, Revital by Ranbaxy Global, Omez by Dr Reddy’s Labs, Azithral by Alembic and several others were being sold at a mark up of up to 1,123 per cent over the cost of production.
Worried over the findings of the study, the Corporate Affairs Minister, Mr M. Veerappa Moily, has written to the Ministers of Chemical and Fertilisers, Mr M. K. Alagiri and Health, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, seeking appropriate action on curbing this practice of the pharma companies.
He has forwarded a copy of the study to the two ministers.
E-mails sent to Ranbaxy, Pfizer, Zydus Cadila and Cipla remained unanswered, while Dr Reddy’s Lab said it cannot comment on the findings of the MCA.
The MCA study covered medicines manufactured/marketed by Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s Lab, Wyeth, FDC, Alembic, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, USV, Elder Pharma, Zydus Cadila, Wockhardt and Cipla.
According to the suo moto study, the mark up (MAPE) on cost of production ranges from 203 per cent to 1,123 per cent against 100 per cent allowed by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) in case of scheduled drugs.