NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the steep markup on essential cancer medicines, with the bench describing the practice as “broad daylight dacoity” against patients. The remarks came after the court was informed that an essential cancer drug had a maximum retail price (MRP) of Rs 27,000, even though its price to retailers (PTR) was Rs 2,700, a tenfold difference.“There are essential medicines for cancer on which the MRP is printed as Rs 27,000 while the PTR is Rs 2,700. This is absolute rampage and carnage. This is broad daylight dacoity with patients,” news agency PTI quoted a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta saying.“It is very surprising that the authorities who are supposed to take action on this are silent,” it saidThe bench said the price gap was “absolutely shocking” and questioned how such pricing could be allowed.“The MRP is 10 times the rate at which it is provided to the retailers. If this is not extortion, then what it is? People sell their houses, ornaments to get treatment,” the bench said.The observations were made while the court was hearing two petitions dealing with drug-related issues, including demands for tighter price controls.One of the petitioners also raised the issue of registered medical practitioners prescribing generic medicines, and stressed the need for greater regulation of medicine prices.Additional solicitor general K M Nataraj, appearing for the Centre in one of the cases, told the court that the government was not approaching the litigation as an adversarial matter.
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The bench said fixing medicine prices remained a major concern and adjourned the matter to September 29.One of the petitions seeks measures to make drug formulations more affordable by preventing alleged unethical pricing of essential medicines by pharmaceutical companies and retailers. It also seeks strict enforcement of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, to check violations of price-control rules and disproportionate retailer margins.The other petition seeks disciplinary action against doctors for not prescribing generic medicines to patients.