Telangana: Indian Medical Association bats for 1 molecule, 1 price regime

Hyderabad: With variations in the prices of drugs, doctors and chemists are demanding that one molecule must have the same price to make it affordable for the people.

Currently, different companies market the same molecule under different brand names in different prices. This is leading to a steep hike in the prices of medicines due to the trade margins. To make the medicines affordable, chemi-sts and doctors want the one molecule one price regime.

Dr K K Aggarwal, national president of the Indian Medical Association, said, “We want the one molecule one price regime as it becomes easier for doctors to prescribe. Presently, the government has given the licences to companies who price the same molecule at different prices. The doctors are being asked to choose the cheaper versions.”

A technical committee in the department of pharmaceuticals has found that trade margins of life saving drugs and medical devices were 4,000 per cent. This made way for capping the margins and it was suggested that a 35 per cent cap on medicines whose market price is Rs 50 and above. But the recommendation has not been implemented.

Ceiling the prices of medicines has been fixed by the department on 530 medicines and a total of 680 medicines are termed as essential medicines.

Kailash Gupta of All-India Chemists’ Association said, “To make medicines affordable it is important to cut down the profit margins.”