Five pharmaceutical companies pledge to reduce prices of medicine

In response to the letters of cancellation issued by the National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA), five pharmaceutical companies have pledged to reduce the prices of medicines with effect from August 1. Therefore, reductions would be for example, the price of Calcivita 50s will be reduced from Rs. 800 to Rs. 661.30, Rivotril (2mg) from Rs. 1801.41 to Rs. 1608.75 and so on.

According to NMRA Chairman Prof. Asita De Silva, the letters of cancellation were issued since the five pharmaceutical companies had violated the ‘Conditions of registration’. “These conditions look at price affordability, accessibility and other factors. But we will not revoke the letters as yet since the legal process needs to be complete. Therefore we will be checking if the price reductions are accurate and whether they will be duly implemented.”

He further said that apart from these companies, the NMRA had also informed all other pharmaceutical companies to follow the due process. “These were the first complaints we got, but we are receiving more complaints and will be continuing investigations,” he added.(Kamanthi Wickramasinghe)