NEW DELHI, December 20: The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has revised the ceiling prices of 49 formulations.

The prices of bulk drugs, Ibuprofen and Ranitidine were earlier revised by the union government in March 31 and July 28 based on the cost studies prepared by the Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices (BICP). With the NPPA becoming functional lately the consequential revision of prices has to be effected by it.

The NPPA in its last meeting held on December 5, has examined the implication of the revision on the prices of formulations based on the prices of the said bulk drugs on the basis of established criteria.

Other parameters like conversion charges, packing material, packing charges, process loss of raw materials and MAPE of 100 per cent have been kept at the existing level for revising the prices of formulations on suo-moto basis.

In all, ceiling prices have been revised in respect of 13 formulation packs based on bulk drug Ibuprofen and six formulation packs in case of the bulk drug Ranitidine. In the case of Ranitidine, non-ceiling price for six formulation pack have also been revised. Similarly, the price of one formulation pack based on Erythromycin has been fixed by adopting the current price of bulk drug.

In addition prices in respect of 23 non-ceiling packs related to other bulk drugs namely, vitamins, Demethylchlortetracycline, HP insulin, human insulin were also examined based on the applications in Form III and IV and have been revised by adopting established criteria.

This is the second major case of revision of drug prices by NPPA after it has become functional. Earlier, the NPPA reduced the ceiling prices of 35 formulations packs and non-ceiling prices of another 37 formulation packs.

The NPPA then considered the cases of 25 bulk drugs and worked out the prices of formulations in respect of the bulk drugs of which the prices were reduced by the government on account of the reduction in customs duty and corporate tax in the 1997-98 Budget.

In this exercise, the NPPA considered only the change in the material cost due to the downward revision of notified bulk drug prices. Other parameters of working were retained at the existing level as per methodology earlier approved.

In the decision taken by NPPA earlier, the percentage reduction effected ranged between 15.88 in case of Lyndiol Tab and 0.17 in case of Naprosyn Gel and Napryn Tab. In case of Analgin Tab the reduction in price was to the extent of 6.04 per cent while for Analgin injection (50 per cent concentration), the reduction was up to 0.79 per cent. For Oxytetracycline based formulations, the reduction was up to 9.09 per cent.

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