Health & Life SciencesGS2 · GS313 October 2026
Supreme Court asks why every medicine’s MRP cannot sit within a 16% retailer margin
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The news
NEW DELHI, 12 October. A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta called the Centre’s 30% cancer-drug margin cap commendable but inadequate, and asked why all medicines and devices could not come within the 16% retailer margin under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013 — the gap between the price to retailer (what a chemist pays) and the MRP. It cited an India-made cardiac stent costing about ₹5,000 sold by hospitals for over ₹25,000. ASG Aishwarya Bhati cautioned against a uniform cap; the Centre has until 27 October to work out modalities. Separately, Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava asked all States to make clinical establishments display each service’s rate in the local language and English.
Prelims nuggets
- The Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013 is issued under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955 and enforced by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (set up in 1997).
- Scheduled formulations, drawn from the National List of Essential Medicines, carry ceiling prices; non-scheduled ones may raise their MRP by at most 10% over the preceding twelve months (Paragraph 20).
- Paragraph 19 of DPCO 2013 lets the government fix any drug’s price or margin in extraordinary circumstances, in the public interest.