Indian government begins fresh exercise to revise the NLEM

The National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) in India, which determines the basis of drug price regulation, is set to add new medicines for the treatment of cardiac diseases and cancer along with certain antibiotics to its list. This would result in a massive slash in prices for these drugs, reports The Pharma Letter’s India correspondent.

Pharmaceutical companies have, however, been lobbying hard against price control. In a parallel move and to curtail supply shortages, the NPPA is said to be looking to hike the price of some medicines. The retail price of formulations like antibiotics metronidazole and benzylpenicillin and BCG vaccine for tuberculosis could increase.

The Indian government has initiated a new process to identify essential medicines and bring some of them under price control. A newly-constituted committee of NLEM met recently and decided to shortlist drugs that would be needed in adequate numbers with no compromise on quality. Several drug majors as well as industry associations and activists participated in the meeting.