Industry Odisha Bureau, Sept 30: India has extended minimum import prices on two pharmaceutical raw materials, ATS-8 and Sulfadiazine API. The floors run until November 30, 2026. Imports priced below them can be blocked or face higher duties.
Two pharmaceutical raw materials will keep facing a floor on their import price. The rule covers ATS-8 and Sulfadiazine API. It will remain in force until November 30, 2026. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade confirmed the extension in separate notifications. The move keeps an existing trade mechanism in place, rather than creating a new one.
Two inputs, two thresholds
The two floors differ sharply. ATS-8 carries a minimum import price of $111 per kilogram. Sulfadiazine API carries a far higher threshold of $1,774 per kilogram. Both figures are set in US dollars and measured per kilogram. Each floor applies only to its own material. The reported notifications do not explain why the two levels differ.
How the import rule works
A minimum import price acts as a regulatory baseline. It sets the lowest price at which goods can enter the country. Consider a foreign supplier offering either input to an Indian buyer. The import price is checked against the relevant threshold. At or above that level, the shipment meets the price condition. Below it, the import can be blocked or face higher duties.
The rule therefore targets underpriced shipments, not imports as a whole. It is a price condition on entry, distinct from an ordinary customs tariff.
Regulation starts upstream
Both materials sit at the start of the pharmaceuticals supply chain. They are raw materials for drug manufacturing, not finished medicines. Sulfadiazine API is an active pharmaceutical ingredient, as its name indicates. The rule therefore applies at the import stage for manufacturing inputs. Its immediate effect falls on deals between overseas sellers and Indian importers.
The notifications do not indicate any effect on medicine prices. They also say nothing about domestic output or import volumes.
What the extension changes
The key development is time, not scope. The existing thresholds now remain valid until November 30, 2026. The extension covers only these two raw materials. The measures are temporary, with a fixed end date. What follows after November 30 has not been stated.
What the measure does not mean
The $111 and $1,774 figures are import thresholds for inputs. They are not prices patients pay for medicines. The rule is not a retail price cap on drugs. It is not a blanket ban on imports either. Nor does it fix the prices at which domestic firms sell.
Import rules remain in place
India’s foreign trade regulator is keeping its price floors on two drug inputs. ATS-8 stays at $111 per kilogram. Sulfadiazine API stays at $1,774 per kilogram. Shipments below those levels will continue to face blocking or higher duties. The extension runs until November 30, 2026. For now, it governs how these inputs enter India, at the earliest stage of production.
