The Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), an outfit affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has accused the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the NITI Aayog of working to benefit pharmaceutical companies.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, SJM National Co-convenor Ashwani Mahajan said: “...your departments are acting against what you have promised the people of India.” The letter refers to Modi’s recent statements about mandating prescription of generic drugs to ensure access to medicines.
“The pharmaceutical companies are making profits in the range of 500 per cent to 4000 per cent and that too after imposing price controls. This is because the current formula for arriving at a ceiling price is irrational that legitimises profiteering and is against the interests of the people,” the letter said.
Lauding the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, which caps prices of essential medicines, the letter charged that under the influence of pharmaceutical companies, officials of the Ministries of Health, Commerce (through Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion), and Chemicals and Fertilisers (through Department of Pharmaceuticals), were holding meetings with the NITI Aayog to dismantle the system of price control.”
Earlier, in a three-year action plan NITI Aayog had recommended “de-linking” the Drug Price Control Order from the National List of Essential Medicines, which would effectively put a stop to price control of essential medicines. Simultaneously, the All India Drug Action Network (AIDAN) said that a rule to mandate prescribing generic medicines would be fruitless in the existing set up where most manufacturers retail medicines under brand names.
“Unless manufacturers are made to market medicines under generic name, consumers will not get the benefit of ‘generic medicines’... Merely getting doctors to start prescribing medicines under generic name will end up in shifting the discretion to pharmacists, who will are likely to dispense brands that give them more commission,” a statement from AIDAN said.
The non-governmental organisation has recommended that “all essential and life-saving medicines be brought under price control. Prices of these medicines, it said, should be fixed by restoring the cost-based formula which was employed since 1979.”