Essential drugs list to be expanded

The government has begun work on expanding the country's National List of Essential Medicines, which was last revised in 2003.

The government closely monitors the prices of these essential medicines and is in the process of bringing them under price control.

That would expand the ambit of price control in the Rs 60,000-crore domestic pharmaceutical industry to about 35 percent from the current 20 percent, according to a senior government official.

The extent to which the prices of these medicines will fall once they come under price control is not immediately clear.

The plan is to include newer therapies and medicines to the list which currently has 354 medicines, broadly categorised within 27 therapeutic categories such as ophthalmological preparations, cardiovascular medicines, immunologicals, anti-allergic and so on.

New medicines will be added to the list on the recommendations of an expert committee that is being set up.

The NLEM, first formulated in 1996, was modelled on the World Health Organisation's essential medicines list. It was later revised once in 2003 to accommodate 71 new medicines. Three medicines were dropped from the list as well.

According to sources, the office of the Drugs Controller General of India has already requested the health ministry to constitute an expert committee to revise the NLEM list. The committee, which had finalised the current list in 2003, had suggested a review of NLEM list every two years to "keep its relevant in the context of contemporary knowledge and drugs that keep appearing on the horizon".

There has been a demand from some sections of society to include medicines for several life-threatening illnesses and disabilities – like cancer – in the NLEM list.