Call for India’s Prime Minister to restore drug price caps

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, with its affiliate country program, AHF India, today urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to restore drug pricing caps in India that he recently overturned, a move that advocates fear will make making lifesaving medicines less affordable in that country.

This summer, shortly before Mr Modi was sworn into office, India’s National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) was empowered to cap prices on 108 expensive and widely prescribed medicines for HIV, diabetes, cancer, tuberculosis and cardiac conditions (The Pharma Letter July 15). The decision was hailed as a breakthrough for public health in India, but a mere three months later NPPA reversed course, moving last week to revoke the price caps, allegedly under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and the government.

“Now that drug pricing restrictions have been lifted, prices will likely increase, making medicines unaffordable, especially for the estimated 30% of India’s population that lives below the poverty line,” said Nochiketa Mohanty, country program manager for AHF India. “The setback is doubly disappointing, because United Progressive Alliance - the ruling coalition prior to Modi’s election - had to overcome substantial pressure from the pharma lobby in order to implement these price caps in the first place,” he added.