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According to International Diabetes Foundation, diabetes had long moved from being “a rich man’s disease”. With diabetes now affecting all the segments of Indian population, India stands on the verge of becoming “the diabetes capital of the world” with around 61 million people affected by the disease and expecting to cross 100 million people by 2030. Given the scale of diabetes epidemic, the NPPA justified its price control orders. On hearing the above, all hell broke loose in the Indian Pharma. The Indian pharma industry reacted very aggressively to this decision. Both Indian and multinationals raised concerns that “India’s investment image” had gone to the dogs and that the industry would have to shut down if the same trend continues. The Indian pharma lobbies also filed in the Delhi and Bombay High Courts, and prayed for a stay order which they were not granted, as many Supreme Court judgments had earlier justified price controls on medicines in public interest Modi’s Government rescues India’s Investment Image Given the relentless Industry demands, the Modi government decided to clip the wings of NPPA which was supposedly an expert body of regulators and withdrew their powers to pass such orders in the future. The decision of Modi government to withdraw the powers of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to set price caps on drugs raises serious questions on the state’s commitment to the welfare of the poor. As a result, over 108 essential drugs will now lie outside the ambit of NPPA and its internal guidelines on regulation and control of drugs would cease to apply to them. According to the government, the reasoning for withdrawal of powers of NPPA and clipping of its wings was because “it lacked legality”. Interestingly, the Modi government has found that NPPA was not legally competent to pass price control orders after over 17 years of its creation and immediately after it passed orders that would restrain pharma companies from making super normal profits.
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