No to demand from pharma cos for insulin price hike: NPPA

Drug price regulator National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has turned down request from major pharma firms, including, Eli Lilly and Biocon, to increase price of insulin used for diabetes treatment.
    
"It is pertinent to state that the major manufacturers and importers of diabetic drug insulin, such as Eli Lilly, Cadila, Lupin, Biocon applied for upward revision in the retail price of insulin," the drug price regulator said.
    
However, keeping the interest of large number of consumer's, the prices of insulin formulations have been maintained at the existing level "by suitably adjusting the profit margin in order to ensure the abundant availability of
insulin formulations at reasonable prices", it added.
    
Currently, insulin is available at a price range between Rs 160.26 for a 10 ml vial to Rs 482.33 for a 3 ml pre-filled pen.
    
On July 19, 2012 the NPPA had fixed prices of a total 154 different drug formulation packs, including vitamin C and its derivatives.
    
According to the NPPA, drug formulation containing vitamin C and its derivatives have been revised on suo-moto basis to pass on the benefit of reduction in bulk drug prices to consumers as manufacturers failed to send price revision application to NPPA within the stipulated time.
    
In these cases the prices have been reduced ranging from 0.12% to 37.76% than the existing price resulting lower price for Vitamin C formulations which will benefit the consumers, NPPA said.
    
The decision is likely to impact drug makers like GlaxoSmithKline, Piramal and Pfizer.