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Prices of drugs may shoot up in State

HYDERABAD: The fallout of China’s action in shutting down many pharmaceutical industries to check the pollution levels in view of the Olympics in Beijing, is being felt by the pharma industry in Andhra Pradesh.

With a drastic fall in the supply of Chinese-made raw material for the bulk drug industry, production in pharma industries has registered a dip. Consequently, the spectre of a shortage of medicines haunts the State and if medicines are to be imported, prices could soar, industry watchers fear.

Pharma industry sources say China supplies a major share of the raw material for the bulk drug manufacturers in the State. Now with China clamping down on pharma industries there, production and supply of raw material has come down drastically.

The industry is now going through a severe crisis with input costs rising and raw material not being available. Unlike other industrial products, medicine prices are strictly governed by the Central government through National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA). “Several pharma units have stopped production. Unless the Centre intervenes, there could be a shortage of drugs,” said M. Narayan Reddy, president of the Bulk Drug Manufacturers Association of India.

The association is already demanding a 20 per cent hike in prices of drugs to meet the escalating production costs. “If not a blanket hike, at least price hike on drugs, which are badly hit, is imminent,” he said. The prices of ‘active pharmaceutical ingredients’ needed to prepare drugs have gone up by 40 to 50 per cent. Costs of transportation, packaging material like aluminium foils and plastic has also gone up.

With the Chinese imports stopping, the production cost of one kg of Paracetamol has shot up from Rs.135 to Rs. 335 per kg. Ibuprofen production cost has shot up from Rs. 380 to Rs. 650 a kg.” This price hike is not reflected at the consumers’ end, thereby putting the pharma units under pressure.

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