Demand for affordable government-supplied drugs is picking up with total sales at Jan Aushadhi drug stores crossing ₹150 crore in the second quarter of the current financial year, according to the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) in the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers.

The Ministry estimates that this has led to total savings of approximately ₹600 crore for the common man, as these medicines are 50-90 per cent cheaper compared to the average market price of branded medicines.

According to the Ministry’s price comparison document analysed by Businessline, a 3.5-mg injection of Bortezomib, which is an anti-cancer drug, whose Maximum Retail Price (MRP) in open market for an average of top three brands is ₹11, 412 is available at the Jan Aushadhi store for ₹3,188, which is 72 per cent cheaper than the branded drug. In another example, 1 gm injection of Meropenem costs ₹1,437 in the open market but upto 82 per cent lesser at ₹255 at the Jan Aushadhi stores.

More stores

The range of drugs include anti-cancer, anti-infective, reproductive and gastro intestinal medicines. The number of Jan Aushadhi stores in the country has grown to 4,300 in 640 districts.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India (BPPI), the average monthly sales per store have grown to ₹1.50 lakh.

Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers, said by the end of FY19, the total number of Jan Aushadhi stores in the country will cross 5,000, with annual sales crossing ₹300 crore.

Even as DoP takes efforts to scale up mechanisms for providing cheaper drugs, most consumers still opt for branded medicines from private chemists operating in corporate hospitals or shops near government hospitals where they seek care. According to DoP’s 2017-18 annual report, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has initiated about 1,702 cases of overcharging as on October 31, 2017 under the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO) where demand notices have been issued to pharmaceutical companies for wrongly hiking MRP for those medicines which are under ceiling price limits.

The demanded amount works out to ₹5,908.94 crore for sale of medicine at prices higher than that fixed by the government. The elephant in the room remains the non-recovery of up to ₹3,563.81 crore which is still locked in litigation. An amount of ₹818 crore has been recovered as on October 31, 2017. “Also, the recovered amount is submitted to the Ministry of Finance and the consumer is passed zero benefit of the recovered amount by fining pharma companies,” an official from DoP said.