BS RAWAT
NEW DELHI: The "exorbitant" cost of medical treatment in India has drawn the attention of activists and members of civil society who have told the government to "do something" as the people were unable to get treatment due to the "huge cost".

The activists said that capping trade margins of a few medicines is nothing but a knee jerk reaction after the DPCO amendments, dated January 3, 2019, were criticized in many quarters.

“The government has premised the amendment exempting drugs for rare diseases from the provisions of the DPCO on the false argument that it will incentivize foreign companies to bring new treatments to India,” they said.

The mechanism being suggested to bring down the prices of 73 medicines for cancer and rare diseases is faulty and inadequate. This is because these medicines are being imported such high price that trade margin capping would have a negligible impact for making them more affordable, Ms Malini Aisola of All India Drug Action Network told DTMT.

She claimed, “One such drug is Spinraza, the only known treatment for spinal muscular atrophy (approved by the US FDA in December 2016) which is priced at the equivalent of Rs. 5 crore per year and is not available in India.”

While there is evidence of excessive trade margins for cancer drugs in institutional sales to hospitals, up to this day there has not been a single serious attempt to apply margin caps on hospitals, argues Ms Archana Panda of Cure SMA Foundation of India.

"We assert that we simply do not have the luxury of time – we are losing lives, mainly those of small children, rapidly, each month. It is not impossible, only intent is required to save the lives of several Indian children and patients battling life threatening rare diseases,” said Mr Manjit Singh of Lysosomal Storage Disorders Support Society.