KOTTAYAM: Even as the Opposition continues to criticise the health department\u2019s decision to replace the branded drug used to treat children with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a rare and life-threatening genetic disorder, with a low-cost generic alternative, health experts and public health activities, including those owing allegiance to the Left, have thrown their weight behind the state government.<\/p>\n
According to them, the decision to use the generic version of the drug, risdiplam, manufactured by Indian pharmaceutical company, Natco, as a major step towards challenging exorbitant drug prices and making treatment more affordable. <\/p>\n
Dr B Ekbal, former professor of neurosurgery and a public health activist, said the move should be viewed in the context of efforts to counter the high cost of life-saving medicines. Citing an earlier instance involving a generic cancer drug in 2012, he said Natco had offered a treatment at Rs 8,800 a month, compared with Rs 2,80,428 for the corresponding drug manufactured by German pharmaceutical company Bayer.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoche\u2019s branded drug Evrysdi (risdiplam) costs around Rs 6.2 lakh per bottle, while Natco\u2019s generic version is priced at Rs 15,900. Since a bottle typically lasts 12 days, the monthly expenditure on Natco\u2019s formulation comes to around Rs 30,000. This represents a price reduction of approximately 97% compared with the branded drug,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ekbal also pointed out that Roche had initiated legal proceedings in the Delhi High Court seeking to restrain the commercial distribution of Natco\u2019s generic risdiplam. However, the court ruled in October 2025 in favour of allowing the generic formulation to be manufactured, paving the way for its market introduction, he said.<\/p>\n
He dismissed arguments questioning the efficacy of the generic formulation and alleging inadequate bioavailability as scientifically unfounded. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KOTTAYAM: Even as the Opposition continues to criticise the health department\u2019s decision to replace the branded drug used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":941742,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[49,48,99562,84,377,322548,43085],"class_list":["post-941741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cost-reduction","tag-health","tag-medication","tag-sma-drug","tag-spinal-muscular-atrophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=941741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/941742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=941741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}