Supreme Court pushes for uniform price caps across all essential medicines

The Supreme Court has directed the government to reconsider its approach to medicine pricing, asking why margin controls should be restricted to specific categories when they could be extended across all essential pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

The intervention comes as the government has proposed capping trade margins at 30 percent for both patented and non-patented cancer medicines. The court, however, suggested that a similar framework could serve the broader objective of ensuring affordability across the entire spectrum of essential healthcare products.

A key concern raised by the bench was the implementation gap affecting Drugs Price Control Order (DPCO)-regulated medicines. Despite legal price regulation, many of these drugs fail to reach patients efficiently, indicating that price controls alone are insufficient without addressing distribution and margin structures.

The court's position suggests a more comprehensive approach to pharmaceutical regulation in India, potentially impacting how margins are set across the supply chain. The government has been tasked with examining whether uniform margin caps could improve accessibility to essential medicines while maintaining the pharmaceutical industry's viability.