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Supreme Court Examines Excessive Medicine Markups and Price Controls Beyond Cancer Drugs
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Firstpost•14-10-2026, 18:11
Supreme Court Examines Excessive Medicine Markups and Price Controls Beyond Cancer Drugs
- •The Supreme Court is reviewing steep markups on medicines sold through hospital pharmacies, highlighting cases where drugs supplied at low costs carry massive MRPs.
- •Advocate KC Jain filed a PIL pointing out that 83 percent of medicines by value in India are non-scheduled, allowing manufacturers to fix MRPs without a prescribed ceiling.
- •The current drug price-control regime under the DPCO 2013 lacks a nationwide framework to regulate what private hospitals can charge for procedures, services, and medicines.
- •Data revealed instances where hospital MRPs ranged from 4 to 67 times the original procurement price, heavily burdening patients across various medical categories.
- •Experts suggest expanding price interventions, utilizing generic manufacturing, and exploring compulsory licensing or bulk procurement to make essential and rare-disease treatments affordable.
Key Questions Answered
The Supreme Court highlighted instances of extreme drug markups, including a case where a cancer medicine supplied to retailers at approximately Rs 2,700 carried a maximum retail price (MRP) of Rs 27,000.
Petitioner Kishan Chand Jain submitted that roughly 83 percent of medicines by value and 82 percent by volume fall outside the scheduled category under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013.
The government introduced a 30 percent trade-margin cap for selected non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines to prevent excessive mark-ups, which is expected to generate significant annual savings.
