Agencies
NEW DELHI, May 14: A paracetamol tablet that fails to bring the fever down or, more seriously, a capsule for a heart condition that has no curative effect — imagine putting your faith in a medicine that doesn't cure you, or worse, actually harms your body. That could be a growing reality in India, with experts in the Indian pharma industry fearing that one in five drugs sold in the country are fake.
ASSOCHAM estimates that the lethal market is growing at 25% annually. In fact, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's latest figures say 75% of fake drugs supplied the world over have their origins in India.
These telling figures have now made the drug controller general's office decide to undertake the world's largest-ever study to assess the actual size of this menacing market.
Expected to start soon, the Rs 50 lakh study, to be spearheaded by drug controller general of India, Surinder Singh, and expected to take six months, will see drug inspectors pose as patients and pick up 31,000 drug samples.
The study has already identified 61 popular drug brands from nine therapeutic categories that will be tested.
They include anti-tuberculosis medications, anti-allergics, drugs to counter diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, anti-infective steroids, anti-malarials, NSAIDs, anti-histaminic and multi-vitamin preparations.
Government's effort to introduce uniform prices of medicines throughout the country seems to have backfired. The move intended to dispel confusion among consumers, has actually did just opposite and in certain cases, resulted in higher drug prices.
Before the government directive came into being in October, the price on medicine packs was printed as "MRP (maximum retail prices) plus local taxes" which provided retailers a chance to mislead the consumer and charge a higher price, experts said.
The rationale for implementing a MRP-based system was to have uniform prices throughout the country, and to curb this practice followed by retailers. On implementing the government move last year, the MRP printed on the medicine pack should have gone up by 4-6% on account of value-added tax and central sales tax for most companies.
But, while complying with the government directive, companies increased the MRP in certain cases above the expected 6% level.
Experts said manufacturers have hiked the retail prices of their popular brands over and above the sum payable as local taxes. Some examples are: price of Nise (nimesulide) of Dr Reddy's has shot up from Rs 27 to 32 — an increase of 18.5%, while the price of Relant (cetirizine and ambroxol) has increased by less than 9% to Rs 38.85.
In case of Ranbaxy's Storvas (atorvastatin) the price has increased from Rs 80 to 84.84 ie by 6%, and Covance-50 (losartan) by over 20% to Rs 60.45. Novartis has increased the price of Voveran SR (diclofenac) 100mg from Rs 49.30 to Rs 57.50 ie by 16%.
The price of Betacard (atenolol) marketed by Torrent has increased by 18% to Rs 38, while price of Alprax (alprazolam) has gone up by 7% to Rs 37.35.
According to a Ranbaxy official: Covance price has been increased by 21% over two years and after clubbing 6% of tax incidence (which was already part of the price consumer was paying). Hence net price increase is 15% over a period of two years.
Companies have explained that the increase is on account of higher input costs. "Over the last two years there has been considerable increase in material costs, particularly the ones based on petrochemicals, apart from the general inflationary pressure.
So the recent price risies are mostly adjustment to increasing costs, apart from the inclusion of taxes in MRP. The increase has not been uniform as material costs have not necessarily risen uniformly for all our products.
Secondly, competition is fierce, so the market limited price increases in some products to the bare minimum. Both these reasons have contributed to non-uniform price increases across the portfolio," Dr Reddy's executive said.