The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has increased the ceiling prices of chemotherapy drugs Cisplatin and Carboplatin by 50 per cent after shortages affected availability across India. (a representative picture) | Photo Credit: iStockphoto

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has increased the price of chemotherapy drugs Cisplatin and Carboplatin by 50 per cent, responding to shortages reported in the country over the last several weeks.

This is a one-time increase in ceiling prices, in the public interest and to ensure continued market availability, the authority said, and would be reviewed in six months. The revised prices are Rs 90.74 for the carboplatin injection 10 mg/ml and Rs 10.89 for the cisplatin injection 1 mg/ml.

The “long overdue” action by the Government was welcomed by doctors who had approached the NPPA about dwindling supplies of these two price-controlled medicines, described by some doctors as the “backbone” of chemotherapy.

CS Pramesh, Director at Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Hospital, told busienssline, “Cisplatin and Carboplatin are one of the most important drugs in cancer chemotherapy...Though it is not very expensive, the problem was that the existing price cap ...was making it unviable for companies to manufacture it, especially when the cost of the platinum and the API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) had gone up substantially... It’s not that this was a difficult drug to manufacture...it was just that platinum prices had gone up.” The National Cancer Grid had flagged the shortage to the NPPA, he said.

“The overall cost of these drugs (is low), because they are completely off patent, and there is a lot of competition amongst companies to sell it. This is ..a very welcome step ...because otherwise it would have been denying patients the chance of cure. If you compare it with all other kinds of drugs, relatively speaking, this is much, much cheaper. ..So not being able to access a cheap drug is something that could have been very tragic.”

Pramesh further points out, “if we want good quality drugs, we should be prepared to accept these changes. ...And what would be really useful is if the cost of the API is a publicly known figure - having a ceiling price which is linked to the cost of the API would make a lot of sense because otherwise we end up having crisis like this where it becomes really difficult for patients to access effective but still relatively very inexpensive drugs.”

Companies making these drugs include Cipla, Venus Remedies, Mylan, Fresenius Kabi, Pfizer, Hetero and Alkem, according to industry data.

The NPPA said it had received applications for the upward price revision under paragraph 19 of DPCO, 2013, citing various reasons like the “increase in cost of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, increase in cost of production, exchange rates etc. resulting in unviability in sustainable production and marketing of the drugs.” The prices of Carboplatin API and Cisplatin API have reportedly increased substantially during recent years, adversely impacting the viability of production and supply of these formulations, it added.

Published on June 12, 2026