Bengaluru: Karnataka’s health department has welcomed the Centre’s move to cap trade margins at 30% of the maximum retail price (MRP) for all non-scheduled anti-cancer drugs.In a letter to Union health minister JP Nadda in Sept, health minister UT Khader had sought national-level intervention to curb excessive patient billing for cancer drugs, medical devices and consumables procured by hospitals at discounted institutional rates.Citing an inspection by the Karnataka health department, Khader had highlighted that the analysis had found that certain medicines and consumables were being sold at mark-ups ranging from around three to over 50 times the procurement cost.Khader had sought the formation of a central inter-ministerial expert group, a national study of high-value medicines and devices, tighter trade-margin caps, mandatory disclosure of procurement costs and patient billing prices, and expanded price regulation by National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).“The Centre’s decision to cap trade margins at 30% of the MRP is a significant policy change following Karnataka’s investigation,” health department officials said.Earlier in Sept, TOI had reported that Food Safety and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Srinivas K had written to the Centre on two separate occasions — first, flagging the huge gap between the landing cost and MRP of medicines, and second, seeking price regulation for essential medical devices to reduce patients’ out-of-pocket expenditure.
