Analysing the country’s drug prices, a senior Indian pharma executive has said that India is now the “only country” in the world where drug prices can be “outrageously high”.
“The reason is the government has not put an end to it,” said Sudhir Varma, the managing director of India’s largest pharmaceutical company, Salix Pharmaceuticals.
“We have seen prices that are high.
The drug prices are so high that the government will not pay for drugs.”
He said that the country had to find a “new way” to tackle the issue of rising drug prices.
A key sticking point in negotiations between the government and the industry is a provision that allows a generic drug to cost less than its branded counterpart.
India’s government has said it is considering a new formula to bring down drug prices that could include lowering the price of generic drugs from the current US$1,000 to US$600.
In the past, Indian companies have faced similar problems when it came to drug prices because of the government’s pricing control, which allows for generic drugs to be sold at higher prices.
In January, the government said it was looking into how to cut drug prices in India by a further 5% this year, although it did not provide details.
Last month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a global warning for the country, warning that “the situation in India is not good”.
“While there are no direct or indirect mechanisms for reducing drug prices from the global market, governments can mitigate the impact by working with the pharmaceutical industry to improve the availability and quality of medicines,” the WHO said in a statement.
India has a global market of about US$30bn and is estimated to have more than US$5tn of unmet demand.
It is one of the top five global markets for generic medicines.
But the pharmaceutical sector has been hit by a severe shortage of medicines and shortages of medicines in recent years.
The government has also been struggling to meet growing demand for its own drugs in the country.
Last year, the Indian government said that it would set up a national pharma research hub and start offering generic drugs for around US$2,500 a dose.
The Indian government has launched several initiatives to address the shortage of drugs in recent months.
On April 3, it launched a programme to provide subsidised medicines to some 4.5 million Indians who were under 18 years of age.
This initiative will initially cover children between the ages of 14 and 25, and it will gradually extend to the adult population.
Last week, the state-run health ministry announced that it will provide subsidies to people aged 60 and above, in addition to the existing subsidies.
In June, the Ministry of Health announced a pilot project to supply generic drugs through an online marketplace for people aged between 60 and 70 years old.
The plan is to eventually expand the scheme to include everyone aged over 70 years.
Last September, the Health Ministry announced that its drug price control policy would be extended for five years, starting from April 1, 2019.
The country has also launched the Bharat Pharma Price Management System (BPMS), a database to track prices of generic medicines and drugs from other countries.
BPMS is based on the data from the national health database and can help in identifying shortages and prices for medicines.