Aluminium foil shortage may hit drug supply chain

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, October 19

Shortage of aluminium foil (packaging material), coupled with its price escalation, might lead to scarcity of several essential drugs as their manufacturing has become unviable.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority controls the prices of 680 scheduled drug formulations. The prices are revised once a year, based on the wholesale price index.

Prices up 25-30 pc

With aluminium foil prices going up 25-30 per cent in three months, manufacturing of several drugs has become unviable. Some scheduled drugs may become unavailable, if the situation is not checked immediately. SL Singla, adviser, drug manufacturers’ association

“With the price of aluminium foil increasing by 25 to 30 per cent over the last three months, manufacturing of several drugs has become unviable. Several scheduled drugs may become unavailable, if the situation is not brought under control,” said SL Singla, adviser, Himachal Drug Manufacturers Association.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers have been facing shortage of aluminium foil for the past 5-6 months. Singla, a pharma manufacturer himself whose unit uses 25 tonne aluminium products every month, said, “There has been an increase of Rs 60 in the price of packaging material over the past 45 days. This has jacked up the production cost at my unit by Rs 15 lakh.”

“Due to this, the manufacturers are forced to revise the prices of drugs at short intervals. However, this cannot be done in case of scheduled drugs,” said Singla, who runs MDC Pharmaceuticals at Baddi.

Sanjay Khurana, a supplier of aluminium foil in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial belt, said, “Production has been hit in China due to power shortage and implementation of strict measures to check carbon footprint. This has hit supplies globally, including in India.”

“Domestic producers are more keen on exports and this has created a shortage of aluminium packaging material in the domestic market,” he added.

“The supply is likely to be only about 50 per cent of the domestic demand in October. The situation was almost similar during September and there is no likelihood of any improvement in the near future,” he added.