Govt caps margins on non-scheduled cancer drugs at 30% of MRP; patients to save ₹2,500 cr annually

The government has approved a cap on trade margins for non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines at 30% of their maximum retail price (MRP), the department of pharmaceuticals announced on Thursday.

The department said the decision extends price protection to cancer medicines that are not included in the scheduled list of drugs already subject to government-mandated ceiling prices.

An expert committee under the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) will finalise the list of medicines to be covered, following which the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) will take a decision and issue a notification.

The move aims to curb excessive mark-ups in the supply chain and reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure of cancer patients, who often face high treatment costs.

"NPPA's analysis of market data found that non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines carry an average price mark-up of approximately 170 per cent, reaching 700 per cent or more in some cases. In simple terms," the official statement said.

Prices also vary depending on whether medicines are purchased from retail pharmacies, hospital pharmacies or online platforms, it said.

State authorities, including those in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Karnataka, as well as patients and civil society groups, have raised concerns over high medicine prices and the gap between procurement costs and the MRP charged to consumers.

The government said the intervention would cover branded and generic medicines, domestically produced and imported drugs, as well as patented and non-patented medicines.

Manufacturers of non-scheduled anti-cancer drugs will be required to maintain their current production levels, the department said.

The decision, which is expected to be implemented later this month, will bring down prices of 110 anti-cancer drugs, including 35 patented medicines.

"The primary aim of the trade margin rationalisation (TMR) is to prevent mis-selling malpractices. There is a tendency to sell drugs having a bigger margin, and since anti-cancer drugs are more expensive than the rest, we wanted to cap the trade margins on them," PTI quoted sources as saying.

The decision builds on a February 2019 intervention, when the NPPA capped trade margins on 42 selected non-scheduled anti-cancer drugs under Paragraph 19 of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013.

That measure reduced MRPs by up to 91% and generated reported annual savings of ₹984 crore across 526 brands, according to the department.

The department estimated that around 60 people per one lakh population in India are affected by cancer.