With the government taking several measures to ensure the quality, safety and efficacy of medicines, the Indian pharmaceutical exports ranked 11th globally in value terms in the year 2023, Anupriya Patel, Union Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers, said in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

Citing a research analysis published by Bain and Company in the year 2025, Patel said that the total pharmaceutical exports accounted for 3 per cent.

“The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare have taken several measures to ensure the quality, safety, and efficacy of medicines,” Patel said, in a written reply.

This includes risk-based inspections of drug manufacturing and testing firms in December 2022 by the CDSCO, in collaboration with State regulators.

About “905 units have been inspected, resulting in 694 actions being taken,” the minister added.

Meanwhile, the MoS also stated that the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Policy (NPPP), 2012 has laid down principles for the regulation of prices of drugs.

“The key principles of regulation of prices under the said policy are -- regulation on the basis of essentiality of drugs, regulation of prices of formulations only, that is, medicines used by consumers and not the upstream products such as bulk drugs or intermediates, and regulation through market-based pricing and not cost-based pricing,” Patel said.

Under the policy, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), under the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP), fixes ceiling prices under the provisions of the Drugs (Prices Control) Order (DPCO), 2013.

For consumer benefit and transparency, the Ministry has also launched NPPA’s mobile app, Pharma Sahi Daam (PSD). It is available for download from the Google Playstore for Android-based devices and from App Store for Apple devices.

Consumers can easily access the brand name, composition, ceiling price, and maximum retail price of drugs from PSD.

Further, all price notifications of formulations for which prices have been fixed or revised are available on NPPA’s website, Patel said.