The government has fixed trade margins of over 40 costly cancer drugs following which their prices have come down significantly, the Parliament was told on Tuesday. "We had to import cancer medicines but now India is capable of manufacturing them. We have introduced PLI scheme under which the manufacturing of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) required for making cancer medicines have also started in India," Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya told the Rajya Sabha in response to a question. He said that such medicines are imported, as per requirement, but trade margins of 44 cancer treatment medicines, which are very costly, have been fixed, bringing down their prices significantly, which is benefiting cancer patients.
The minister also informed the House that the MRPs of these cancer medicines have been capped in such a manner that it cannot be more than 60 per cent of the first price that a manufacturer sells to a distributor in India. On what steps are being taken by the government on reports of about 175 healthcare organisations refusing to honour and clear bills of ex-servicemen under the Central Government Health Scheme, the Minister assured the house that government will look into the matter. He also assured that issues faced by senior retired journalists, whose bills have not been cleared under CGHS, will also be addressed. Mandaviya also said that the reach of CGHS centres are also being expanded to 81 cities from 25 cities earlier and every two monthsm the package under the scheme is revised to meet the changing treatment protocol requirements.