Senior BJP leader writes letter to Amit Shah on drug pricing issue

 A senior BJP leader has urged the party chief Amit Shah to take up the issue of pharma companies "overpricing" life-saving drugs with the Prime Minister.

In a letter written to Shah on Saturday, senior BJP leader and former Health Minister in Punjab Cabinet Laxmi Kanta Chawla alleged that pharma companies were "looting" the public by overpricing medicines including life-saving drugs.

"The MRP put on medicine package is 10-15 times higher than the actual price. At times it is even 20-25 times higher. Though MRP stands for Maximum Retail Price, pharmaceutical companies seem to have made it MLP -- Maximum Loot Price," she charged in the letter.

Chawla urged the BJP President to take up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as the Chemical and Fertiliser Minister and urge them to put in place a pricing mechanism that will not only make life-saving drugs affordable but also ensure that pharma companies make "genuine profits". Shah was in Amritsar on Saturday.