Karnataka Seeks Price Caps on More Life-Saving Drugs

Karnataka on Saturday urged the Centre to extend proposed price controls on expensive, non-scheduled cancer medicines to other high-cost life-saving drugs used to treat cardiac and kidney ailments, welcoming the Supreme Court's observations on excessive mark-ups on essential medicines. 

"The state government also hereby requests the Union Government to extend this capping to other essential life-saving medicines necessary for treatment of cardiac, kidney ailments etc., particularly high-cost drugs, to reduce the burden of treatment in terms of cost to the common man," the



state government said.

The state's appeal follows the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority's (NPPA) in-principle approval to cap trade margins on identified non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines at 30 per cent of their maximum retail price (MRP), subject to finalisation of the list of medicines. 

The Supreme Court had questioned why the MRP of essential medicines, including cancer drugs, could not be capped at 16 per cent above the price to retailer (PTR), as applicable to scheduled medicines under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013,