2012 yearender: Drug prices, takeover of Indian cos remained govt focus
A new drug price control policy at long last, restrictions on multinationals taking over domestic firms and India cracking down on foreign firms' patents marked the year 2012 for the country's USD 22 billion pharmaceutical sector.
It was the government that hogged the limelight this year as far as the sector is concerned, unlike in the past when corporate mergers and acquisitions stole the show.
After years in the making, the government eventually cleared the new National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy-2012.
It brought under price control 348 medicines included in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) – accounting for 60 per cent of total domestic pharma market - amounting to nearly Rs 29,000 crore. The Supreme Court had also pulled up
the government for not taking any decision on bringing more drugs under the price control for many years.
As per the policy, prices of essential medicines will be capped by taking simple average of all brands which have more than 1 per cent market share, instead of input costs, as was followed earlier.
While the government was clear that the policy would bring down the prices of leading drug brands, industry players were of the opinion that it would hurt investment sentiments.
"A preliminary working shows that prices of many leading brands will be slashed by 50 per cent to 80 per cent. This will reduce industry profit by half to Rs 4,000 crore on domestic sale of Rs 67,500 crore," Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance (IPA) Secretary General D G Shah had said.
This will hurt investment climate
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