The Supreme Court has termed the huge markups on essential cancer medicines as “daylight robbery” after being informed that a drug costing retailers Rs 2,700 was being sold with a maximum retail price of Rs 27,000.
A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta questioned how patients could be made to pay 10 times the procurement cost and asked why the authorities had not taken action against such pricing practices.
The court also expressed concern over hospitals procuring medicines at inflated rates and subsequently seeking reimbursement through government healthcare schemes such as CGHS, DGHS and AYUSH.
The bench observed that taxpayers ultimately bear the financial burden and described such practices as an apparent form of fraud and exploitation.
The court was hearing two public interest litigations dealing with allegations of excessive cancer drug prices, profiteering by pharmaceutical companies and retailers, and the functioning of pharmacies operated by hospitals.
The petitions claimed that private hospitals restricted patients from buying medicines from outside pharmacies and instead required them to purchase drugs through their in-house pharmacies at significantly higher MRPs.
One of the petitions was filed by a family after the mother of one petitioner and the wife of another were diagnosed with breast cancer in July.
According to the family, they witnessed private hospitals during treatment and chemotherapy allegedly forcing patients to purchase costly medicines from hospital pharmacies. The petition further claimed that patients who asked for more affordable generic alternatives were treated dismissively.
The second petition alleged that registered medical practitioners were failing to prescribe lower-cost generic medicines and accused pharmaceutical companies and retailers of engaging in unethical profiteering.
The petitioners have called for stricter implementation of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order, 2013, with the aim of preventing excessive medicine markups and safeguarding patients from inflated costs.
