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Parliamentary Panel Seeks 20% Cap on Gap Between Medicine Landing Price and MRP

20 August 2026National

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare's 176th Report, presented in the Rajya Sabha on 7 August 2026, recommends that the gap between a medicine or device's landing price and its Maximum Retail Price (MRP) should not exceed 20%, citing Tenecteplase (landing cost ~₹18,000 vs MRP ₹50,000) as an example. It recommended quality benchmarks like ISO 13485 and centralised, tender-based hospital procurement, pointing to India's 2017 coronary stent price cap — which cut prices to ~₹25,000-30,000 and saved consumers an estimated ₹13,353 crore annually — as a precedent.

Static GK

Landing price = a drug/device's market entry cost; MRP = Maximum Retail Price | ISO 13485 is the international quality management standard for medical devices | India's coronary stent price cap was introduced in 2017

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