Bengaluru, Oct 10 — Karnataka Health and Family Welfare Minister U.T. Khader has welcomed the Supreme Court’s observations on excessive mark-ups on essential medicines, including cancer drugs, and urged the Union government to implement price-control measures swiftly and extend them to other high-cost life-saving medicines used to treat cardiac and kidney diseases.
In a statement on Saturday, the Commissioner of the Food Safety and Drug Administration said Karnataka had urged the Centre and the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to ensure that the benefits of price rationalisation reached patients directly and reduced the financial burden of treatment.
The Supreme Court had questioned why the maximum retail price (MRP) of essential medicines, including cancer drugs, could not be capped at 16 per cent above the price to retailer (PTR), as applicable to scheduled medicines under the Drugs (Prices Control) Order (DPCO), 2013.
The court flagged the substantial difference between procurement prices of medicines and the amounts ultimately charged to patients.
In a letter dated September 23, 2026, to Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda, the Karnataka government had sought urgent national intervention after inspections revealed substantial differences between the procurement or landing costs of medicines and their MRPs charged to patients. The state identified pricing concerns involving 253 medicines and consumables.
Karnataka urged the Centre to bring advanced chemotherapy, targeted therapy and other expensive cancer medicines under the ambit of the DPCO and prescribe comprehensive limits on trade margins for costly, life-saving and anti-cancer medicines.
The state also sought an expansion of the NPPA's price-control oversight, within the applicable legal framework, and greater transparency in medicine bills issued by hospitals and pharmacies.
It proposed making disclosure of procurement costs, MRPs and additional margins mandatory, besides conducting a national-level study on differences between manufacturers' prices, hospital procurement costs and the final amounts charged to patients.
Other proposals included constituting an inter-ministerial expert committee comprising representatives of central ministries, the Department of Pharmaceuticals, NPPA, state governments, hospitals, insurance companies and medical experts, and strengthening the NPPA's enforcement powers to prevent excessive charging and unfair profiteering.
As part of the transparency measures, the state issued a circular to healthcare institutions on October 1, directing them to mention both the landing cost and MRP of medicines in bills issued to patients. The instructions are advisory in nature and are proposed to come into effect from November 1, 2026.
Meanwhile, at its 283rd meeting and the 151st meeting, held on October 8 under the chairmanship of the Secretary of the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers, the NPPA granted in-principle approval to rationalise trade margins on non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines.
The proposal seeks to cap trade margins on identified non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines at 30 per cent of their MRP under Paragraph 19 of the DPCO, 2013, subject to finalisation of the list of medicines covered by the measure.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has been directed to constitute an expert committee under the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) to recommend anti-cancer medicines to be brought under the price-control measure. The committee is expected to submit its report by October 14.
According to the statement, the Centre estimates that the proposed measure could reduce the MRPs of several anti-cancer medicines by 20 to 70 per cent, generating savings of approximately Rs 2,500 crore.
Welcoming the move, Karnataka called for wider and time-bound implementation, pointing out that non-scheduled medicines remain outside the ceiling prices fixed by the NPPA and account for a substantial share of the medicines market by value.
The state urged the Union government to extend the proposed 30 per cent trade-margin cap beyond cancer medicines to other essential, high-cost life-saving drugs used in the treatment of cardiac and kidney diseases, among other conditions, to make treatment more affordable for the common man.