Diabetes, anxiety drugs to cost less as price caps set in

Move soon after report Ion India's diabetes load; pain management drug prices capped too

- Priyanka Sharma

India’s drug price regulator has capped the price of two formulations and the retail price of 51 new drugs that are largely used for treating diabetes and mental health conditions like depression and anxiety.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority’s (NPPA) move to fix the ceiling for retail prices of different combinations of diabetes drugs comes soon after the Indian Council Medical Research said in a report the number of Indian diabetes patients has jumped by 44% in only four years—from 70 million in 2019 to more than 100 million today.

And around 15.3% of the population — at least 136 million people — are pre-diabetic.