News
Thrice-rejected supplier bids again with exorbitantly high heart medicine price
View(s):By Namini Wijedasa
The local agent of papaverine hydrochloride—the only registered supplier of this heart medication in Sri Lanka—has placed a bid to supply 1,800 injections of the drug to the State Pharmaceutical Corporation (SPC) at Rs. 49,000 per ampule, authoritative sources said. This is the fourth time since last year Yaden International (Pvt) Ltd has placed the bid after a Health Ministry technical evaluation committee (TEC) turned down three previous offers on the basis of the exorbitant prices quoted, the sources said.
The rejected bids are for papaverine hydrochloride 60mg in 2ml capsules. The first offer was for Rs. 73,000 per ampule. The TEC rejected it and recommended for Yaden to re-tender. It did so in May last year, offering to supply 1,800 ampules at Rs. 48,199 each. This, too, was turned down by the TEC.
A third offer was made in December 2024 for 2,900 ampules at Rs. 50,050 each—again rejected.
The fourth bid was placed with SPC in February at nearly Rs. 50,000 per ampule. That is yet to be evaluated, and the government-funded health sector continues to function without the medication which patients now purchase for vastly cheaper—Rs. 300 to 350—from the private sector.
Doctors who carried out price checks said a box of ten ampules can be bought for as low as 75 Indian rupees in the neighbouring country. Yaden has been sourcing the medicine from the Indian company Mercury Laboratories Ltd.
The Association of Cardiothoracic and Thoracic Surgeons of Sri Lanka has brought this matter to the attention of former Health Ministry Secretary Palitha Mahipala and current Secretary Anil Jasinghe, the source said. The Director General of Health Services has also been informed.
Papaverine hydrochloride recently came into the spotlight when the Health Ministry revealed it had been sold to the public health sector since 2018 at prices ranging from Rs. 34,000 to Rs. 76,500 per vial. The procurements continued uninterrupted until the excessive price was flagged last year by a cardiothoracic surgeon in the TEC.
In January this year, Health Minister Nalinda Jayatissa claimed that several politicians were linked to the local supplier. (This could not be independently verified.) He told the weekly Cabinet briefing that an investigation would be launched to find out how approval had been granted in the past to buy the drug at such prices. And he revealed that the government had spent Rs. 342.49 million to import it from 2019 to 2023.
Minister Jayatissa also said that the National Medicines Regulatory Authority’s pricing committee now reviews regional prices before renewing drug registrations. It also uses its own internal references.
Where there is a significant gap between the prices quoted by the importer and these benchmarks, the regulator will write directly to the manufacturer for the CIF (cost, insurance and freight) price of the respective products, an NMRA official previously told the Sunday Times. In the past, a letter from the local agent signed by the manufacturer sufficed.
However, the NMRA cannot implement its proposed pricing mechanism or set minimum prices owing to an ex-parte injunction given by the Court of Appeal in relation to a petition filed by the Sri Lanka Chamber of the Pharmaceutical Industry.
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