The Indian government has expanded price controls on non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines, capping trade margins at 30 per cent of the Maximum Retail Price (MRP) to curb excessive markups and reduce out-of-pocket costs for patients. The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers announced the decision on 9 October 2026, projecting annual savings of ₹2,500 crore for cancer patients and price reductions of up to 70 per cent.

What the New Cap Covers

The 30 per cent MRP cap will apply to branded and generic, domestically produced and imported, patented and non-patented non-scheduled anti-cancer drugs alike. This extends protection beyond the existing scheduled medicines list, which already carries government-set ceiling prices under the Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO), 2013. The cap will restrict margins added at every stage of the supply and retail chain before medicines reach patients.

An expert committee under the Directorate General of Health Services (DPCO) will finalise the list of medicines to be covered. The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) will then issue an official notification. Manufacturers will be required to maintain current production levels to ensure availability is not disrupted.

The Scale of the Problem

The move addresses a long-documented pricing anomaly in India's oncology drug market. The NPPA's own analysis found that non-scheduled anti-cancer medicines carry an average markup of approximately 170 per cent, with some cases reportedly exceeding 700 per cent. Prices were also found to vary sharply between retail pharmacies, hospital pharmacies, and online channels — creating an uneven burden for patients depending on where they purchase medicines.

Cancer incidence in India is rising, with roughly 60 people per one lakh population currently affected, according to government data. State governments in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Karnataka, along with patients' groups and civil society organisations, had formally raised concerns about excessive pricing and the wide gap between purchase price and MRP.

Building on the 2019 Intervention

This decision extends a policy framework established in 2019, when the NPPA capped trade margins on 42 selected non-scheduled anti-cancer drugs under the DPCO, reducing MRPs by up to 91 per cent. That intervention reportedly generated annual savings of ₹984 crore across 526 brands. The new measure broadens that coverage significantly, applying to a much wider universe of non-scheduled oncology medicines.

Notably, this is the second major structural intervention on cancer drug pricing in under a decade, signalling a shift from ad hoc drug inclusions to a systemic margin-control architecture across the oncology segment.

Impact on Patients and the Pharma Sector

For patients, the cap directly addresses one of the most financially devastating aspects of a cancer diagnosis in India — the cost of medicines that are not on any price-controlled list. Critics of the pharmaceutical supply chain have long argued that multi-layered margins, not manufacturing costs, drive unaffordability.

For the industry, the regulation introduces compliance obligations across both domestic producers and importers of patented drugs. The requirement to maintain production levels is designed to pre-empt any supply withdrawal in response to margin compression. The government's forward-looking step now awaits the NPPA notification that will operationalise the cap.