Cancer Drug Trade Margins Capped at 30 Per Cent of MRP

The correct answer is 30 per cent of the Maximum Retail Price. The Government has approved a ceiling on the margins charged while non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines move through the supply chain to the patient, and that ceiling is fixed at 30 per cent of the MRP. The measure is expected to pull prices down by as much as 70 per cent and to leave cancer patients about Rs 2,500 crore better off every year. Options A and B, at 10 per cent and 20 per cent, are tighter than the level actually approved; no such lower ceiling was announced for these medicines, and quoting them would understate the margin a seller may still retain. Option D, at 50 per cent, is looser than the approved figure and would leave much of the mark-up untouched, which defeats the purpose of the decision. The number worth remembering is therefore 30 per cent of MRP, applied to medicines that sit outside the scheduled list and so were previously free of direct price control.

The correct answer is Rs 2,500 crore. The Department of Pharmaceuticals expects the cap on margins for non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines to save patients about Rs 2,500 crore every year, mainly by reducing what they spend from their own pockets on treatment. Option A, Rs 984 crore, is the saving reported from the earlier and much narrower intervention of February 2019, when margins were capped on 42 selected non-scheduled anti-cancer drugs and prices fell by up to 91 per cent across 526 brands; it belongs to that older decision, not to the present one. Options B and D, Rs 1,500 crore and Rs 5,000 crore, are plausible-sounding amounts but neither was announced. Aspirants should keep the pair of figures separate: Rs 984 crore for the 2019 cap under Paragraph 19 of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, and Rs 2,500 crore for the wider cap approved now.

The correct answer is the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority. Two bodies have distinct roles here, and the question turns on telling them apart. An expert committee under the Directorate General of Health Services will finalise the list of medicines that the cap should cover; once that list is ready, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority will take the decision and issue the notification giving the cap legal effect. Option D, the Directorate General of Health Services, therefore comes earlier in the sequence and does not notify prices. Option A, NITI Aayog, is the Government policy think tank and has no role in fixing medicine prices. Option C, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, is the national drug regulator concerned with approvals, quality and safety of medicines rather than with what they cost. The pricing authority is also the body that capped trade margins on selected anti-cancer drugs in February 2019.

The correct answer is 42. In February 2019, on the direction of the Government, the pricing authority capped trade margins on 42 selected non-scheduled anti-cancer drugs, using Paragraph 19 of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013. That decision brought retail prices down by up to 91 per cent across 526 brands and was reported to save patients Rs 984 crore a year, which is why it is cited as the precedent for the wider cap approved now. Options A, C and D are near misses designed to test whether the figure has been memorised precisely rather than roughly; none of them was the number of drugs covered. A useful way to hold the 2019 decision in mind is the chain of four numbers that go with it: 42 drugs, 526 brands, prices lower by up to 91 per cent and a yearly saving of Rs 984 crore.