NPPA increases Vitamin C prices to improve supply

Vitamin C tablets may be back on chemists’ shelves before long.
The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has raised the ceiling price of the formulations in a bid to improve their supply in the market.

Over the past few months, many drug manufacturers had cut production of these tablets or stopped making them altogether as the prices of bulk drugs, or the key raw materials, for these formulations shot through the roof.

Vitamin C bulk drugs are primarily sourced from China, where the government has been closing polluting factories, leading to an undersupply situation and thereby pushing up prices.

Yet, manufacturers in India were unable to pass on the increase in the cost of bulk drugs to customers in the absence of a directive from the NPPA, which controls the prices of the formulations made using these.

The authority has now increased the price of vitamin C (plain) by Rs 67.50 to Rs 613 a kilo, vitamin C (coated) by Rs 70 to Rs 600 a kilo and sodium ascorbate by Rs 69.30 to Rs 645 a kilo, a senior NPPA official told DNA Money.

Vitamin C is extensively used by asthmatic patients and children suffering from dental problems. Deficiency of Vitamin C in the human body leads to scurvy.

The Vitamin C market is pegged at Rs 100 crore in India. Popular products in the segment include Limcee from Piramal Healthcare and Celin from GlaxoSmithKline, which were undersupplied in the past four months in anticipation of an increase in prices. Among others, state-owned Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals and the Drug Controller General of India had reported about the shortage.

The NPPA, meanwhile, has reduced the prices of 13 out of 85 formulation packs by 0.03-8.93%. For new formulations, it has reduced prices by 10.6-28.68% in 11 cases, the majority of them being imported insulin for diabetics.