Medicines or Margins? India's Drug Pricing Crossroads.

Pharmaceutical pricing in India lies at the crossroads of economics, ethics and public health.

- Dr Milind Kokje

It must reconcile two competing imperatives: recovering the cost of developing and distributing medicines, and ensuring that patients can afford them. In a country where out-of-pocket expenditure still accounts for a large share of healthcare spending, pricing policy is not simply a commercial question—it is a matter of social justice.

The debate has regained urgency following concerns raised by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers about structural weaknesses in India’s drug pricing framework. The committee has recommended strengthening the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), the statutory regulator tasked with fixing and monitoring medicine prices. Its observations underscore longstanding institutional and policy constraints that limit the effectiveness of price controls.