Price of 651 essential drugs down by 6.73 percent

Subject : Polity

Section: Msc

Concept :

According to Health Ministry sources, India has been taking steps to ensure the availability of affordable medicines for the masses, with a significant reduction of 6.73% in essential medicines’ pricing.

Details

In 2022, after a gap of five years, the government prepared a new Essential Medicine list.
National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had been able to fix the ceiling prices of 651 medicines so far out of the over 870 scheduled drugs listed under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM).

National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM).

It is one of the key instruments in a balanced healthcare delivery system of a country which inter alia includes accessible, affordable quality medicine at all the primary, secondary, tertiary levels of healthcare.
The first National List of Essential Medicines of India was prepared and released in 1996.
It focuses on three aspects – cost, safety and efficacyAims and objectives-
Its primary aim is to promote the rational use of medicines considering three important aspects — cost, safety and efficacy.
“The concept is based on the premise that a limited list of carefully selected medicines will improve quality of healthcare, provide cost-effective healthcare and better management of medicines.”

Types of drugs included are-

Typically, once NLEM is released, the department of pharmaceuticals under the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers adds them to the Drug Price Control Order, after which NPPA fixes the price.
However, this year a standing committee was put in place to ensure some essential medicines are “adequately available at lower prices”.
The list includes anti-infective medicines to treat diabetes such as insulin — HIV, tuberculosis, cancer, contraceptives, hormonal medicines and anesthetics.

Factors for inclusion of a drug in the list-

Several factors influence the decision to include a drug in the NLEM.

As per the 2015 regulations, “every medicine may be necessary or even critical for specific disease conditions for which it is indicated. But in the context of NLEM, a medicine may be essential considering the population at large and should fit into the definition mentioned earlier.”
A changing disease burden also impacted the decision-making process. Other factors include efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness.
A drug is removed from NLEM if another medicine performs better in terms of these above-mentioned factors.

Need for the NLEM-

Drugs listed under NLEM — also known as scheduled drugs — will be cheaper because the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) caps medicine prices and changes only based on wholesale price index-based inflation.
They account for 17-18 per cent of the estimated Rs 1.6-trillion domestic pharmaceutical market. Companies selling non-scheduled drugs can hike prices by up to 10 per cent every year.

Importance of NLEM-

NLEM plays an important role in ensuring the accessibility of affordable quality medicines at all levels of healthcare.
This will give a boost to cost-effective, quality medicines and contribute towards a reduction inOut of Pocket Expenditure on healthcare for the citizens.
This is critical because the recently released National Health Accounts Estimates 2018-19 point to a high burden on households to pay for healthcare, which is a key reason pushing Indians into poverty.
In Uttar Pradesh for example, out-of-pocket health expenditure accounts for 71.3 per cent of the state’s total health expenditure. For India, the figure was 48.2 per cent.