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Pharma ministry asks NPPA to clear price change applications in 30 days. The department of pharmaceuticals has asked the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) to clear price revision applications received from drug companies within a period of 30 days, instead of the current norm of 60 days. It is learnt that the decision to expedite the process of clearance of applications has come in the wake of problems faced by the industry due to rising prices of bulk drugs imported from China. China is the largest supplier of raw material for bulk drugs to India and controls over 70% of the Rs 15,000 crore annual market for imported bulk drugs. While the Chinese government had closed down many of its drug manufacturing units due to environmental norms around the Olympics, prices of drugs had gone up exponentially. According to industry sources, many domestic and global pharma majors have approached the price regulator with individual applications to increase prices of some of their key drugs. Several companies have also asked NPPA to revise prices of bulk drugs. Industry associations such as Indian Drug Manufacturing Association (IDMA), Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of Indian (OPPI) and SME Pharma Industries Confederation (SPIC) have also urged the government and NPPA to increase the prices of drugs by 20% and bulk drugs (raw materials) by 25%. During the past months, the industry had threatened to stop production of some essential medicines as it was commercially unviable for them due to the steep rise in various input costs. It is learnt that the government has rejected the industry’s demand for any suo moto increase in prices of drugs. Instead, the government is understood to have asked the industry to file individual applications for price revision to NPPA with documentary evidence of increase in input costs. The government is now planning to take measures to revive bulk drug units which have either closed or stopped manufacturing bulk drugs due to short supply of raw material from China. According to industry sources, around 50 bulk drug manufacturing units have closed while others have cut down production of loss-making drugs.