COST VARIATION ANALYSIS OF SINGLE NONSTEROIDAL ANTI-INFLAMMATORY AGENTS AVAILABLE IN INDIAN MARKET: AN ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE

Introduction: Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are widely used drugs to manage a variety of acute and chronic conditions associated with pain and/or inflammation. In the Indian market, various NSAIDs group of drugs are available in different formulations. This creates a lot of problem with physician to decide the drug of choice for individual patients. Objective:  To evaluate price variation of different single NSAIDs formulations available in Indian market. Materials and Methods: Cost of a particular drug in the same strength and dosage forms being manufactured by different companies was obtained from “Current Index of Medical Specialties” (CIMS) Jan-Apr, 2015 and “Indian Drug Review” (IDR) Issue 1,2015. Difference between the maximum and minimum cost of the same drug manufactured by different pharmaceutical companies was calculated and percentage cost variation was calculated. Spearman correlation analysis and regression coefficient was done to observe the correlation between no. of manufacturing companies and their percentage price variation with the help of IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS v.21). Results: For Oral preparations, Diclofenc(50mg tab) showed maximum price variation of 1231.37% followed by Diclofenac 100mg sustained release preparations(782.00%). Diclofenac injection 75mg[3ml] & 25mg/ml[3ml] showed maximum variation of 483.94% & 416.67% respectively. Percentage variation in cost was found to be 325.11% with Diclofenac 1%gel while minimum price variation was found with Nimesulide 1% gel (22.92%). Conclusion: Our findings revealed that the prices of various NSAIDs formulations show great variation. Modifications in pharmaceutical policy are required, and prices of the drug should be controlled in effective way for all the drugs