The Indian government has left everyone in shock by approving a price hike for essential medications. These are used to treat critical illnesses like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and internal infections. This decision is going to make a significant impact on millions of patients who rely on these medications to save their lives. Higher costs for cancer and diabetes drugs can lead to many more deaths in India; citizens reacted.
The prices of diabetic, heart diseases, and cancer are set to have a hike of 1.7% under the government price control. This list of drugs includes the ones that are in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), which are said to be regulated to ensure affordability for the citizens in the country.
The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has found several valid reasons. Before taking a step to approve the price hike on essential life-saving medicines, They considered these.
One of the major reasons is the rise in the cost of raw material and production. If the selling price is not hiked, there would be no resources left to produce those medicines in the future.
Increased operational expenses for pharmaceutical companies also contributed to this situation. Medicine production needs extreme care, and it has also become expensive with the ever-evolving tech and finance of a country.
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Considering all the changes and factors in the management of the industry, this step is taken to make sure that the pharmaceutical industry sustains itself through all these vulnerabilities and thrives towards saving lives.
Impact on Patients:
While the price hike might seem very small, it could still be a burden to millions of patients, especially to those who are under long-term treatments, but the government stated that they saved ₹3,788 crore annually in the medication.
The NPPA monitors and regulates the drug prices to avoid overcharging for profits and demand. Despite the strict monitoring, there have been 307 reported violations of pricing from the pharma industries. And they are considered as ‘medical crimes.’
The main motto of this move is to make sure that the pharma industry sustains all the changes in the market. Their primary goal is to save people from many life-threatening diseases. For that, these industries must be sustained for a long term.
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