Cancer drug price cuts leave costly brands untouched

Mumbai: Prices of several widely used cancer drugs are set to fall sharply from November 9, following a revision by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). However, the price cuts leave several top-selling patented treatments, including Keytruda (pembrolizumab), Opdyta (nivolumab), Tagrisso (osimertinib) and Imjudo (tremelimumab), untouched.


The NPPA released a list of 543 anti-cancer drug brands late Tuesday evening, detailing the revised prices.


The move comes amid a Supreme Court hearing on petitions seeking regulation of high-trade margins charged by hospitals on medicines. The court has criticised regulatory agencies, hospitals and pharma companies over the unaffordability of cancer drugs.

On October 17, NPPA released a list of 137 compounds for which it said trade margins would be capped at 30%. It also directed companies to fix the maximum retail price (MRP) at the first point of sale for non-scheduled formulations.

The revised list leaves prices of several patented drugs unchanged. Keytruda 100 mg injections remain priced at ₹2,16,500, Imjudo 300 mg injections at ₹4,17,522 and Opdyta 100 mg infusions at ₹1,09,450. An industry source said this is subject to additional clarifications from the Centre.


Generic cancer drugs, by contrast, face steep reductions. A pack of sunitinib capsules will cost ₹285.69, down from ₹889, while a pack of 30 olaparib tablets will be priced at ₹2,695, compared with ₹15,398 earlier. The price of a pack of 21 palbociclib 100 mg capsules will fall more than 10-fold, from ₹24,505 to ₹2,068. These drugs are used to treat cancers including ovarian, breast, lung and liver cancer.

A veteran health policy expert told ET that although prices of patented drugs remain unchanged, patient assistance programmes (PAPs) offered at private hospitals could lower the effective purchase price for patients. The expert said the government should negotiate prices for these drugs when procuring them for public health services, the armed forces and other institutional requirements.