NPPA’s drug overcharging penalty at a record high

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) recovered ~294.84 crore in the current financial year as penalty from companies that have overcharged, Minister of State Mansukh Lal Mandaviya said in the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

The amount deposited was the highest since 2013-14. NPPA found 120 cases of charging more than the price it had fixed.

In 2015-16, it found 263 cases of overcharging, against which it got ~12.36 crore, 129 in 2014-15 against which it got ~90.17 crore and 90 in 2013-14 against which it got ~40.08 crore.

The regulator has registered 1,493 cases of overcharging since its inception in 1997.

In February, the NPPA listed 634 drugs sold at prices suspected to be higher than the ceiling.

The regulator in its latest notification, named Sun Pharmaceutical, Cipla, Lupin, Abbott Healthcare, Zydus Cadila, Wockhardt, Torrent Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, Biocon, AstraZeneca, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline, Intas Pharmaceuticals, Macleods Pharmaceuticals, Morepen Laboratories, Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer and Novartis, among others, for “suspected overcharging”.

NPPA has the mandate to fix prices according to the Drug Price Control Order of 2013. In the process of making medicine prices affordable, it has reduced the price of cancer drugs by up to 86 per cent since March 2016. This includes 12 drugs marketed by major pharmaceutical companies such as AstraZeneca, Intas Pharmaceuticals, Dr Reddy’s, Dabur India limited, RPG Lifesciences and Natco Pharma.

Among medical devices, it has capped the price of coronary stents by slashing its price up to 85 per cent.

In a notification on February 13, the NPPA capped the price of drug eluting stents at ~29,600 and bare metal stents at ~7,260.