The Union government formed a committee housed in its think tank NITI Aayog to recommend medicines for price control, diluting the central role of the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority (NPPA) in setting drug prices. Currently, NPPA functions as an autonomous body regulating prices of medicines and health products such as stents under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM), besides monitoring prices of those that are not on the list. The new order also ends the existing mechanism in which drugs declared essential would automatically come under price control. From now, the NTI Aayog committee will decide which drugs should be under price control.

(Live Mint)