Pharmaceutical stocks are likely to trade down next week as the meeting of Group of Ministers on National Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy remained inconclusive Thursday and investors do not see any positive trigger before the final call. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who also heads the ministerial panel, had said the committee will again meet next week and a final decision will be taken in 8-10 days. Currently, the panel is seeking data from emerging countries such as Brazil, China and Mexico to study their drug pricing formula.
According to Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilisers Shrikant Kumar Jena, panel was also mulling the pricing formula suggested by the commerce and industry ministry. In May, the commerce ministry had recommended that the weighted average price of all drug brands that have more than 3% market share in a particular therapeutic segment should be fixed as the ceiling price of that particular drug.
