Prices of cancer, AIDS drugs may come down in India post-Budget 2009

The Union Finance Ministry is urged to cut down duties on cancer/AIDS medicines in forthcoming budget.

Prices of medicines used to treat cancer and AIDS could come down in India soon.

A proposal to cut down the excise and customs duties levied on cancer and HIV drugs across the board has been mooted by the Department of Pharmaceuticals as part of its pre-budget recommendation made to the Union Finance Ministry to make drugs in critical segments affordable the common man.

The Department of Pharmaceuticals was set up last year under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers to oversee and promote the pharmaceutical industry in India.

It has been reported that the Centre might hike customs and excise duties on certain drugs in the forthcoming budget.

Excise duties of certain drugs used in critical segments like cancer is already cut down to zero or four percent.

The Union Government brought down the excise duties on medicines in last year’s budget to 8 percent from 16 per cent. In December, the Union Government slashed the excise duty again to 4 per cent.

The Department of Pharmaceuticals has reportedly sought the Finance ministry to continue the duty at  4 per cent for the finished drug formulations.

The dept has also  recommended an increase in the rate of abatement on the MRP-based excise to 60 per cent.

The finance ministry is also sought a weighted deduction on research be extended from 2010 to 2017, the official said. At present drug companies get 125 per cent weighted deduction on research outsourced to a third party and 150 per cent on in-house research, reports said.

Recently, Surinder Singh, the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) had recommended that cancer drugs be brought under the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA).

“As the DCGI, I have outlined the technical inputs and rationale behind the suggestion for the inclusion of new drugs. Cancer drugs, in particular, should be included, since they are expensive and beyond the means of the common man,” Mr Singh was quoted as saying.

Even though the DCGI has mooted the proposal, a final decision on this was to be taken by the department of pharmaceuticals.

Cancer and HIV drug marketers in India includes both the multinational companies as well as the domestic companies who are having a cancer drug franchise.

Of late, several MNCs have been identified India as one of the emerging market to sell their top selling drugs.

Roche, GSK, Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Sanofi-Aventis etc have already launched their new generation cancer drugs in India eyeing India’s fast growing oncology (cancer) segment.

Cancer accounts for 3.6% of the total deaths in India, the second-largest non-communicable disease. Oral and lung cancer in males and cervix and breast cancer in women account for over half of all cancer deaths in India. Market for breast cancer drugs alone is expected to double from $35 million in 2007 to $64 million by 2012.

India, which is used to a generic-driven market for such a long time finds most of the new generation drugs as too costly for the commoner. Some of the cancer new generation cancer drugs costs hundred to three hundred times the price of the similar therapies available in the Indian market.

Pfizer, for example, which was granted a patent for its kidney cancer drug Sutent (sunitinib) in India in 2007, launched the drug at a price of Rs 1.96 lakh for a 45-day treatment in the country.

Roche’s Tarceva is another case in point. Tarceva (erlotinib) is a novel therapy for patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after failure of at least one prior chemotherapy regimen. Tarceva costs around Rs 3,30,000 for a 3-month treatment.

Indian drug makers also have several oncology drugs marketed in India. Dabur, Dr Reddy’s, Cipla, Natco are some of the prominent players in the oncology segment.