NPPA to submit recommendations by end of the week

new delhi: national pharmaceutical pricing authority (nppa) will submit its recommendations on the drug price control order (dpco) 2002, based on the new drug policy, to the chemicals and fertilisers ministry by the end of this week. the authority which held a meeting of all its members on tuesday discussed the draft of the new dpco and is expected to finalise it by wednesday. when contacted nppa chairman b s baswan confirmed the development and said that the authority expected to submit the draft to the government by the end of the week. apart from the other nppa officials, ex-officio members of the authority including ashwani kumar, the drug controller general of india, j k puri and subbramanian of the ministry of finance attended the meeting, he said. with nppa submitting its recommendations in about two months after the new pharmaceutical policy was announced in february five this year, the industry can hope to have the new dpco before the end of the four month time span granted to the ministry by the cabinet. after the first draft is submitted to the nodal ministry for vetting, it will be sent to the ministry of legal affairs. dpco 2002 which replaces dpco 1995 will be based on the data of org-marg regarding the sales turnover of drugs and guidelines on price control spelled out in the new policy. it is expected to bring down the price control from current level of 67 drugs to about 31 drugs, according to industry sources.