NPPA: 22 medical devices must show MRP

HAVING CRACKED the whip on stent pricing, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has now made it mandatory for all 22 medical devices, including syringes, catheters, heart valves etc that are classified as drugs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 to display MRPS on packs.

Among the items that will now have to do so are surgical dressings, hypodermic syringes, IV cannulae, orthopaedic implants, cardiac stents, condoms and intra uterine devices.

The last three are already under price control of NPPA.

The OM issued by the authority on Friday reads: “Paragraph 25 of DPCO 2013 casts an obligation on every manufacturer in respect of display of prices of nonscheduled formulations and price lists thereof.as per paragraph 25(1) every manufacturer of aforesaid non-scheduled formulations intended for sale shall display indelible print mark on the label of the container of the formulation and the minimum pack thereof offered for retail sale, the maximum retail price with the word ‘maximum retail price’ preceding it and the words ‘inclusive of all taxes’ succeeding it.” It also required the manufacturers to display a clear price list of these items and inform the government or regulatory authorities about these prices periodically.

The prices of these items are already monitored and cannot be increased by more than 10 per cent in one year.

NPPA recently created a furore when it brought cardiac stents under price control and started proceedings against hospitals for violating the price ceiling. Despite industry backlash about Indian patients being denied latest technology, the authority stood its ground.

Meanwhile minister of state for chemicals and fertilisers Mansukhlal Mandaviya informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that more than Rs 294 crore have been recovered from pharmaceutical companies till February 2017 for overcharging buyers for drugs that are under price control.

When caught companies need to deposit the overcharged amount along with interest and a penalty. A total of 120 such cases were caught till February 2017 and for the 2016-17 financial year till that date companies had detected Rs 294 crore for overcharging, more than double the amount collected in the preceding three years. In 2015-16 Rs 12.36 crore was collected, in 2014-15 Rs 90.17 crore was collected and in 2013-14 Rs 40.08 crore was collected.