Price regulation for non-scheduled drugs in India on hold

An initiative to regulate non-scheduled drug prices in India, similar to the previous efforts to cap the prices of select anti-cancer medicines and regulate medical device prices during the COVID-19 era, which was under the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) consideration, has been pushed to the back burner.

More than 80% of the drugs sold in India are from the non-scheduled category.

The ambitious project faced severe opposition from small and medium-sized pharmaceutical firms, who maintained that it could have a detrimental effect on their revenue and threaten their very existence.