New Delhi: With China, the world’s leading manufacturer of raw materials for drugs, resuming production after a four-month Covid-19 lockdown, the prices of active pharmaceutical ingredients or APIs of four top-selling drugs have shot up sharply.
According to data ThePrint collated from Indian pharma companies, antibiotics azithromycin and ornidazole, anti-inflammatory drug nimesulide and antipyretic drug paracetamol have seen their prices jump between 60 and 190 per cent.
Nimesulide price has spiked from Rs 450 per kg in January to Rs 1,300 — a jump of 189 per cent. Azithromycin price has gone up 96 per cent from Rs 7,650 to Rs 10,500 per kg, while paracetamol is dearer by 62 per cent — from Rs 262 to Rs 450 per kg.
The price hike poses a challenge for Indian pharma companies as these APIs are used to manufacture drugs that are under price control, meaning the firms are only allowed an annual price hike of 10 per cent.
“There was a gap in API production in China as the production units were shut due to an outbreak there from January to March. Now they have opened up with bulk orders in hand,” said Arjun Juneja, chief operating officer, Mankind Pharma.
“Also, due to Covid-19 the global demand for medicine is higher than usual which has pushed China to increase the prices even more,” said Juneja, who manufactures formulations using all the four APIs named above.
Another industry official who works for a Mumbai-based pharmaceutical firm said on condition of anonymity, “The hike can also be credited to the increase in price of dollar while additional cost of landing charges such as freight cost has also gone up.”
Also read: Inform public not to use HCQ and azithromycin without prescription, Modi govt tells states
Other APIs in red zone
Several other APIs, including tinidazole, amoxicillin, ceftriaxone, ofloxacin, amikacin and cloxacillin, have seen a price jump from 20 to 40 per cent in the period between January and April.
The jump has been moderate — between 12 and 20 per cent — for APIs such as tetracycline, gentamicin, norfloxacin, doxycycline and tramadol.
“It is a worrying trend. These raw materials are for important drugs, especially paracetamol and azithromycin. All these drugs are under price control, hence manufacturers are not allowed to increase the retail price of the medicine,” said Sandeep Arora, chief executive officer at Baddi-based Ultra Pharmaceuticals in Himachal Pradesh.
What are APIs?
APIs, also known as bulk drugs, are chemical compounds that are the most important raw material to produce a finished medicine.
In medicine, API produces the intended effects to cure the disease. For instance, paracetamol is the API for crocin, and it gives relief from body ache and fever.
Every medicine is made up of two main ingredients — the chemically active APIs and chemically inactive, excipients, which is a substance that delivers the effect of APIs to one’s system.
Indian drug makers import around 70 per cent of their total bulk drug requirements from China. In the 2018-19 fiscal, the government had informed the Lok Sabha that the country’s drug makers had imported bulk drugs and intermediates worth $ 2.4 billion from China.
With a lockdown in China from January due to the Covid-19 outbreak, API supplies to produce drugs for treating HIV, cancer, epilepsy, malaria as well as commonly-used antibiotics and vitamin pills, was hit.
(This report has been updated to correctly reflect that Ultra Pharmaceuticals is based in Baddi and not Bengaluru)
Also read: Why India doesn’t have an edge in exports of azithromycin, the other Covid-19 ‘wonder drug’
It is a shame that India cannot make APIs and other ingredients by own talents.