Prices of essential drugs to rise

Hyderabad: Apart from the 348 medicines in the essential price list, the prices of other medicines will shortly increase as the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority has agreed to allow pharmaceutical companies to hike the price of drugs by 6.32 per cent from April 1.

Respiratory disorders, combination drugs, fixed dose drugs, a small section of anti-tuberculosis drugs  and also anti-diabetic drugs have not been covered in the essential price list.

IMS Health Data that analyses how much households expend on health, states that medicines account for 60 per cent of the total healthcare cost in a household. With a rise in prices, the expenditure of households will increase.

Dr Sai K, a chemist in the city, said, “An increase will affect the end users as already the prices of existing medicines are not affordable for many. Increasing prices defeats the purpose of the essential price list.”