India's National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has revised the price ceilings of over 800 drugs to bring them to synchronise their rates with the newly implemented Goods and Services Tax regime.
New ceiling prices of 814 scheduled formulations became effective from Saturday under the Drugs (Price Control) Amendment Order, the drug pricing regulator said in a notification.
These formulations include medicines used for treatment of cancer, HIV, diabetes and infections among others.
Union Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar had said that the regulator would work out a mechanism to ensure patients do not end up paying more for drugs which are expected to cost more under the new indirect tax.
NPPA had already said that prices of around 78 percent of 'actively used' drugs will remain unaffected after the rollout of GST, which took effect Saturday.
"Price of drugs where partial increase is expected due to roll out of GST will not be passed on to consumers as NPPA is working out a mechanism in this regard," Kumar had told reporters. He further stated NPPA is working out a mechanism "to subsume for partial increase of retail prices of some drugs".
Kumar reiterated that "prices of life saving drugs and essential drugs rates will come down with reduction in GST rate".
The regulator had earlier indicated that the prices of majority of essential drugs would increase by up to 2.29 per cent when the GST regime kicks in. The government has fixed GST rate of 12 per cent on most of the essential drugs as against the earlier tax incidence of around 9 per cent.
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