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news.The Indian government has reduced the prices of more than 150 life-saving drugs in over 1,000 formulations as per the price cuts announced in the 2008 Union Budget, reported the PharmaTimes.
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According to the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the budget’s reduction in countervailing duty (CVD) rate from 16% to 8% has lowered the prices of 36 of the 64 price-controlled bulk drugs which are imported into India. Of these the price cut for 21 drugs is more than 1%, which means it has to be passed on to the consumer.
The newly-announced regulation, which will also reduce the prices of imported drugs marketed by multinational drugmakers like Eli Lilly, Pfizer and Sanofi-Aventis, includes products such as betamethazone, carbamazapine, insulin, ranitidine, rifampicin and salbutamol.
The 2008-09 budget also reduced customs duty from 15% to 10% for certain live-saving medicines and the bulk drugs used in their manufacture, and exempted them from excise and CVD. It also cut the excise duty on the maximum retail price of all products manufactured by the pharmaceutical industry from 16% to 8%. However, the prices of drugs manufactured in India’s tax-free zones, which account for about 30% of the country’s total production, are excluded from the price cuts.