New pharma policy to be ready by Nov 27 as GoM hammers out ‘consensus’ over possible pricing formula

Pushed by the Supreme Court to finalise the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy before November 27, the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Wednesday claimed to have settled the differences among the key ministries over the pricing mechanism and vowed to announce the policy in time.

Pushed by the Supreme Court to finalise the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy before November 27, the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Wednesday claimed to have settled the differences among the key ministries over the pricing mechanism and vowed to announce the policy in time.

However, the GoM headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar did not spell out the consensus formula.

“We had resolved all the issues. There were certain issues that were being raised by some of my colleagues. We discussed in-depth and we came to an agreeable formula. I think November 27 is the date when Supreme Court is going to take a view on this,” Pawar told reporters after the GoM meeting.

The GoM had earlier decided on weighted average price of drugs with over 1 per cent. However, the fate of the policy was again pushed into dilemma after Finance Minister P Chidmabaram expressed reservations over the pricing formula and called for existing model of cost-based mechanism.

The Finance Minister was a special invitee at the meet. Apart from Pawar, the group consisted of Commerce Minister Anand Sharma and Minister of State for Chemicals Srikant Jena, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Minister for HRD, Communications and IT Kapil Sibal, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Now, once the GoM's recommendations are finalised, it will be sent to the cabinet for approval. Before November 27, there will be a cabinet meeting where all these recommendations will be finalised and pharma policy will be given a final approval by the union cabinet. On November 27, the Supreme Court is slated to hear a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that was filed on the pharma pricing policy.