Health Ministry reduces prices of 48 high demand drugs

The Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine Ministry has reduced the prices of 48 drugs this weekend, just ahead of the 2017 budget which will be read within a few weeks. 

Drugs in high demand for patients with heart ailments and diabetes, as well as widely used antibiotics and painkillers are now subjected to a maximum retail price under an Extraordinary Gazette which amended the National Medicines Regulatory Authority Act No. 5 of 2015. The new regulations will apply to the branded and generic versions of the listed drugs.

Any manufacturer, importer, trader or pharmacist who currently sells these drugs at prices less than the new maximum retail price is prohibited from increasing their prices, and the maximum retail price, or the price the products were being sold at, whichever is less, has to be displayed on the packaging.

Failure to follow the new regulations will result in a criminal offence, and the Consumer Affairs Authority, the National Medicines Regulatory Authority and the Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine Ministry will survey the market for non-compliance.
Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine Minister Rajitha Senaratne had said last month that the new legislation is a continuation of the National Drug Policy which was implemented by Professor Senaka Bibile in 1971.

Prof. Bibile, who was an active member of the Lanka Sama Samaja Pakshaya, was appointed as the Founding Chairman of the State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC) after the Sirimavo Bandaranaike regime came into power and enforced a closed economy.

Prof. Bibile restricted the importation of drugs by pharmaceutical corporations, whom he accused of deriving unjust profits by selling branded pharmaceuticals at exorbitant prices. Pharmaceutical companies were required to purchase drugs imported by SPC at low prices, and the policy was hailed by the World Health Organization, and widely adopted by many developing nations.

However, with the return of the United National Party—which is the larger party in the current ruling coalition—in 1977 with its liberal reforms, Prof. Bibile’s programme was side-lined. The current unity government had pledged to continue the liberal market reforms that were disrupted in the ensuing decades.