Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2018-08-07

Impact on accessing medicines due to the price decline on 48 essential medicines

- The National Medicines Regulatory Authority has conducted a data analysis on the market of medicine in the years 2016 and 2017 to investigate the impact caused by the price decline on 48 essential medicines through the Extraordinary Gazette Notification No.1989/61 dated 2016‑10‑21,. Hon. (Dr.) Rajitha Senaratne, the Minister of Health, Nutrition and Indigenous Medicine brought the following facts revealed in the said analysis, to the notice of the Cabinet.
* that, the patients who have not taken medicines properly as prescribed even on medical advice due to the increase in the price of the medicines, are now inclined to use medicines in a proper manner and even the use of medicines prescribed especially for the treatment of chronic diseases such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension have increased leading to the augmentation of the overall use of medicines;
* that, even though it has been predicted that the use of medicines of high quality would decline with the National Medicines Regulatory Authority taking action to regulate the retail price of around 280 medicinal brand names widely used, the market share of the manufacturers under such brand names has increased considerably and the same under the 'innovator brand' names has increased by around 600% within a period of one year; and
* As such, the patients have received the benefits of approximately Rs.4.4 billion up to now, as a result of the relevant regulatory methodology.