Karnataka’s Health and Family Welfare Minister, U. T. Khader, has written to Union Health Minister J. P. Nadda flagging what he describes as an extreme markup in the pricing of cancer, kidney and other life-saving medicines sold to patients in India.
According to the letter, hospitals are able to procure many of these drugs at steeply discounted institutional rates, yet patients are frequently billed at the printed maximum retail price, with the gap between the two figures ranging from roughly 30 times to more than 70 times the actual procurement cost in some cases. The minister said the practice hits oncology, emergency and intensive care patients hardest, since they are rarely in a position to shop around for a better price while undergoing treatment. To address the problem, Karnataka has asked the Union government to set up an inter-ministerial expert group dedicated to drug pricing and to commission a national study comparing manufacturer prices, hospital acquisition costs and the amounts eventually billed to patients for high-value medicines and devices. The state has also proposed amending existing pharmaceutical price-control orders so that they specifically regulate the prices hospitals charge, along with capping trade margins on cancer treatment and other critical drugs. Among the other measures sought are a requirement for hospitals to issue itemised bills that separately show the acquisition cost and the service margin added on top, and a stronger enforcement role for the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority to act on violations.
The letter comes soon after Karnataka’s drug control authorities uncovered a counterfeit medicine racket in which cheap, bulk-manufactured formulations worth an estimated Rs 5. 05 crore were allegedly repackaged and sold as expensive imported drugs, a case officials say exposed how loosely the current pricing and labelling system can be exploited. Officials in the state health department say the twin issues of counterfeit drugs and opaque pricing have convinced them that only central intervention, rather than state-level rules alone, can meaningfully fix the problem nationwide. The Union Health Ministry has not yet publicly responded to Karnataka’s proposals. Patient advocacy groups in the state have welcomed the demand for itemised billing, saying it would make it far easier for families to know exactly what they are being charged for during a hospital stay.