PIL filed against NPPA's move to lift price curbs

A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed against the National Pharma Pricing Authority’s (NPPA) move to lift price curbs on non-essential drugs.

The PIL is seeking to have the Central Bureau of Investigation probe the removal of price curbs. The NPPA had earlier this year come out with guidelines that gave it the authority to regulate drug prices.

NPPA had taken the industry by surprise on July 10th, when it invoked the rarely used clause of Paragraph 19, that allows price control outside of the list of essential medicines under extraordinary circumstances.The PIL has argued that lifting the price cap will lead to windfall gains for pharma companies and that removing the price cap is unconstitutional against public interest.