|
Identifying the gaps in market data coverage of drug pricing across the country, the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers has sought the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) to formulate a targeted strategy, leveraging ongoing digital health initiatives to improve data capture from the rural and remote regions in order to ensure wider national coverage.
The Panel, in a latest report reviewing the role, functions, and duties of the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) with specific reference to increase in prices of medicines in the country, also recommended to the DoP to look into feasibility of bringing in a real-time inventory tracking mechanism for essential, life-saving and critical care medicines.
The Panel, while deliberating on the gaps in data coverage pertaining to the pharmaceutical sector in rural and remote areas of the Country, noted the DoP's submission that non-digitised rural and remote areas may face challenges such as manual operations and limited connectivity, which can impact data availability.
"Acknowledging these infrastructure-related challenges, the Committee are of the view that a lack of reliable data from rural and remote regions, where a vast majority of the Country's population still resides, leaves a gap in evaluating medicine availability and regional price variations at the grassroots level," said the Panel headed by Member of Parliament Kirti Azad Jha, in its 33rd report.
"In this regard, the Committee recommends that a targeted strategy, leveraging ongoing digital health initiatives, may be formulated to improve data capture from such regions in order to ensure wider national coverage. The Committee may be apprised of the action taken in the matter," added the Panel.
Since 2021, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has been relying on Pharmarack, a third-party pharmaceutical market data specialising company which has been hired through open and competitive tendering process for sourcing market-based data and information relating to pharmaceutical products.
This includes reports on sales values, sales Quantity, Moving Annual Turnover (MAT) Units, MAT Values, Maximum Retail Price, Price to Retailer (PTR), Price to Stockists (PTS) Trend Reports, Price violation reports and market statistics reports on monthly basis through email and Compact Disk.
The Panel observed that Pharmarack covers about 70% of the Indian Pharmaceutical Market (IPM) data, sourced from over 2,000 corporates and approximately 3 lakh Stock Keeping Units (SKUs).
However, it also noted that data pertaining to segments such as hospitals, dispensing doctors, Jan Aushadhi, trade generics and direct to e- commerce supplies is not captured by Pharmarack. This indicates that the current framework may not be able to fully track affordability and availability of medicines across all healthcare delivery channels and consumer touchpoints, it added.
"The Committee, therefore, recommends that concerted efforts be made to incorporate these segments into the data collection framework and the Committee be apprised accordingly," said the Panel.
While the Authority monitors the availability of medicines through its Integrated Pharmaceutical Database Management System (IPDMS) platform and Pharmarack data, and monitors availability of scheduled formulations through submissions made by manufacturers in Form-III, real-time tracking of medicine availability across entire supply chain is not feasible at present, noted the Panel based on the submissions of NPPA.
This is considering the magnitude of the pharma industry comprising around 10,500 manufacturing units, 60,000 distributors and around 12,00,000 pharmacies and hospitals at primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
The Panel observed that while acknowledging the magnitude of the pharmaceutical supply chain in the Country, real-time tracking of availability of life-saving and critical care medicines will prove to be a useful tool in the interest of public health, especially during pandemics or shortages of critical drugs.
The Panel, subsequently, recommended that the Department and NPPA may examine the feasibility of inventing a real-time inventory tracking mechanism for essential, life-saving and critical care medicines and apprise it accordingly.
|