While these 16 medications can be expensive, find out how much they will affect patients’ pockets

New Delhi. In this era of corona, the central government has made changes in the matter of essential medicines. For this, an exercise is underway to control the prices of new drugs by adding new drugs to the national list of essential drugs, while it has been decided to remove 1 drug from this list. Due to which these drugs can be expensive and its effects are sure to fall into the pocket of the patient during treatment.

Most of these drugs are anti-biotic drugs, which have been dropped from the list of NLEMs. Experts associated with the pharma industry estimate that the 16 drugs that have been released could be about 10-12 percent more expensive. The special thing is that the government’s intervention in fixing the price of these drugs will continue only until there is a rule of annual increase. At the same time, due to market access and competition, pharmaceutical companies can make medicines from these 16 types of salts and sell them at prices set by them. Experts say it can do both good and bad for patients.

Kailash Gupta, president of the All India Chemists and Distributors Federation, told News18Hindi that the government’s National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority is a regulatory body that sets the prices of medicines in the country from time to time. For this, a national list of essentials has been prepared which includes those essentials which are most needed in the country and their prices are also high and they are beyond the reach of common man. These are listed and priced.

Gupta said that whenever some drugs are added to the list, some drugs are also taken out and released in the market. These are drugs that are not currently in the life-saving category or whose patents have expired and many other companies are now starting to make these drugs. Due to which the presence of drugs is increasing, there is no need to determine its price. Otherwise their prices are not too high, these are easily available. For all these reasons, they don’t need to be on the list of essential drugs and the government removes them from the NLEM.

These drugs may be excluded from the list of required drugs.

Alteplase (clot buster)

Ethanol (anti-hypertensive)

Bleaching powder, Cetrimide (antiseptic)

Erythromycin (antibiotic)

Ethinylestradiol + Norethisterone (Birth Control)

Ganciclovir (antiviral)

Lamivudine + Nevirapine + Stavudine (antiretroviral)

Leflunomide (antirheumatic)

Nicotinamide (Vitamin-B)

Pegulated interferon alpha 2A

Pegulated interferon alpha 2b (antiviral)

Pentamidine (antifungal)

Priloken + Lignocaine (Anesthetic)

Rifabutin (antibiotic)

Stavudin + Lamivudin (antiretroviral)

Sucralfate (anti-ulcer)

The price of the medicine has not been decided yet

Although News18 has received information that the government has not yet officially released the list of drugs, a proposal to include 39 drugs in the list and remove 16 drugs from the list has been sent to the Ministry of Health after the ICMR meeting. . From there the list will be sent to the Pharmaceuticals section and then it will reach NITI Aayog. Which drugs will be on the list and which drugs will not be kept will be decided here. After that, NPPA i.e. National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority will decide on their prices.

Experts with the government say that even if 16 drugs are removed from the NLEM, their prices will go up after a year. This will be because the government does not allow the price of drugs in the DPCO to increase by more than 10 per cent. Therefore, these drugs can be up to 10 percent expensive.

As far as the National List of Essential Medicines is concerned, the drugs are kept above price control so that all these medicines are available in three types of centers.