Making pharma sick

Price controls in an industry that has anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 manufacturers, and where the market leader has a market share of under 5.5%, has to be one of the more inexplicable decisions taken by the government in recent times. If you take the top-selling drugs under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM)—around 348 drugs and 648 formulations—where the government wants to put price-caps, you find an average of 60 manufacturers per drug; it ranges from 20 in the case of the anti-hypertensive Enalapril Maleate to 124 in the case of the painkiller Paracatemol.

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