Cancer drug price cap: Why a 30% margin limit may not make medicines affordable
Civil society groups say margin controls alone will not bring costly patented cancer drugs within patients’ reach, calling for compulsory licences and other safeguards under the Patents Act.
Even as reports emerge of the Central government’s decision to cap trade margins on cancer drugs at 30% of their maximum retail price (MRP), civil society groups that have been demanding checks on the high prices of cancer medicines say the move to introduce a 30% cap on trade margins for non-scheduled cancer medicines will not make many of these drugs affordable, particularly patented ones.
“In the past, despite such capping in 2019, prices of cancer medicines increased. For instance, the price of Ribociclib shows that even after its margin was capped at 30% in 2019, its monthly cost rose from ₹58,000 in 2022 to ₹78,000 in 2025. Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) still costs around ₹1,95,000 per vial,” said Jyotsna Singh and K M Gopakumar, co-convenors of the Working Group on Access to Medicines and Treatments.
In their initial response to the government’s reported move, they pointed out that a margin cap cannot bring prices like these within reach of ordinary patients. “What is needed is the use of the public health safeguards in the Patents Act, especially government use licences under Section 100, and compulsory licences to enable generic production and set a ceiling on MRP,” they said.
Supreme Court flags steep hospital mark-ups on cancer drugs
The Supreme Court had come down heavily on the practice of charging high prices for life-saving medicines, especially those used to treat life-threatening diseases such as cancer. Questioning the steep mark-ups on medicines sold through hospital pharmacies, including a case in which a cancer medicine supplied at around ₹2,700 carried an MRP of around ₹27,000, the Court had asked the government to examine the regulation of trade margins.
The reported decision by India’s apex medicine price regulator, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), to cap trade margins on all types of cancer medicines comes in this context.
Indian news agency ANI quoted official sources as saying that the cap on trade margins could lead to a reduction of up to 70% in the prices of cancer medicines in India. The report stated that the margin cap would cover all types of anti-cancer drugs, including branded and generic, domestic and imported, and patented and non-patented medicines.