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Pharmaceutical price revisions: Committee assessing request for hike

19 Feb 2022

By Uwin Lugoda A proposal to increase the price of several gazetted drugs has been submitted to the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA), The Sunday Morning learns. State Minister of Production, Supply, and Regulation of Pharmaceuticals Prof. Channa Jayasumana told The Sunday Morning that the Pharmaceutical Importers’ Chamber (PIC) had submitted a proposal to the NMRA to increase the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) of a number of imported drugs.  The request to increase was as a result of the increase in the rate of the US Dollar. “In 2016, the MRP of 60 essential drugs were gazetted and of these 60 only a few are domestically sourced. However, the prices of these imported drugs can be changed from time to time, based on the dollar rate. During the last Government, it was increased three times according to the dollar rate at the time; and so far, we have allowed the MRP to be increased once – also based on the dollar rate,” Jayasumana said. He stated that to increase the price, the industry has to follow a strict procedure which is to submit a proposal to the NMRA and get its approval and the approvals of the Pharmaceutical Ministry and the Cabinet of Ministers thereafter. Accordingly, once the proposal is with the NMRA, a specialised Pricing Committee chaired by Dr. Palitha Abeykoon will review it. Jayasumana said that this committee would collect all the necessary information pertaining to medical importation and the official dollar rate from the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL), in order to justify the requested price increase. He noted that based on the observed fluctuations of the dollar rate over the last seven to eight months, another price increase of 5% was justifiable. However, he pointed out that such a recommendation had not been made by the Pricing Committee.  “Once the committee gives the recommendation and it is approved by the NMRA, the proposal and a suggested price increase from the committee will be sent to us, and we will put it forward for Cabinet approval. Right now the proposal is still with the pricing committee, so we will move forward depending on their recommendations.” Meanwhile, NMRA Pricing Committee Chair Dr. Palitha Abeykoon said that his committee was currently looking into the submitted proposal to make a decision. He explained that while there was no particular timeline for the decision-making, there were calculations that needed to be done with regard to prices in neighbouring countries and other technical details that they needed to collect. “The matter is under discussion because there has been a request from the local pharmaceutical industry. They have not suggested any prices, but only requested a reasonable pricing formula for these drugs,” Dr. Abeykoon said.    


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