India's NPPA sets cap on drug price hikes

The Indian government-supported drug price watchdog, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority, will invoke the public interest clause in the country's drug law more often to pressure pharmaceutical companies to reduce the prices of medicines which rise more than 20% in a year, drug industry sources have said.

The NPPA has also decided to limit its communication with drugmakers to just one reminder, asking them to respond to the show-cause notice on why their product should not be recommended for drug control, reported the Economic Times of India, quoting sector sources.

The newspaper said that, until recently, the NPPA's monitoring had not been very effective as very few companies responded in time to its repeated reminders. It said the NPPA has now started scrutinizing the fluctuations in the price to the nation's retailer of 48,600 formulation packs every month.