Prices of Essential Medicines to be Increased by 10.7%

On Friday, the Drug Pricing Authority of India- National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has approved a price hike of 10.7% for scheduled drugs-which are under price control. This will eventually increase the prices of around 800 drugs under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) from the month of April. This is till now, the highest price hike ever. In its released notification, NPPA stated: "Based on the WPI data provided by the office of the Economic Advisor, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the annual change in WPI works out as 10.76607% during the calendar year 2021 over the corresponding period in 2020." The consequence of this price hike will be expensive healthcare services from next month. NPPA took this decision as the Indian Drug Manufacturers Association recently requested that drug manufacturers should be allowed to increase prices of all non-scheduled drugs by 20% because of the increase in input costs. Drugs like Paracetamol, Phenobarbitone, Phenytoin Sodium, Azithromycin, Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride, Metronidazole, etc which are majorly used in treating fever, infections, heart diseases, high blood pressure, skin diseases, etc will get expensive.