NPPA may lose some autonomy

NEW DELHI: Drug price regulator the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) may lose some of its autonomy soon. The chemicals and fertilisers ministry —NPPA’s parent— wants to have a say in the authority’s drug pricing decisions.

It is planning to place two senior representatives from the ministry in NPPA’s empowered committee for fixing prices. According to the proposal, the new members in the price fixing panel would be an economic advisor from the ministry and another representative not below the rank of a deputy secretary.

Currently, the ministry has the power to review NPPA’s decisions, although the regulator is an autonomous body. If the new members of the pricing committee happen to be officials who review NPPA’s decisions at the ministry level, the pricing body’s independence could be compromised, sources told ET.

This may also enable the government to fire from NPPA’s shoulders whenever it wants to take a populist price control decision.

The other members of the pricing panel are the chairman and member secretary of NPPA, the drug controller general of India and the chief adviser, costs, from the finance ministry. The changes in the pricing panel is proposed in the new drug policy, which is set to be reviewed by a group of ministers in the first week of April.

The proposed changes in the panel’s constitution may also offset the freedom, which the ministry had recently granted to the regulator, to bring new drugs under price control in the public interest.

At present, whenever NPPA notices an ‘abnormal’ increase in prices, it brings this to the ministry’s attention for appropriate action. The proposed change will also make it difficult for the government to review NPPA’s decisions as it makes the government party to the regulator’s decisions.

gireesh.prasad@timesgroup.com