A Rajya Sabha member has urged the Union health ministry to invoke provisions in Indian patent laws to enable local production of inexpensive generic versions of a medicine for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), citing "prohibitive" costs at present.

Upper House member Haris Beeran has said the current costs of medicines approved for SMA are "beyond the reach of the central and state government as well as people", and called for government action to facilitate local production of a drug called risdiplam.

Risdiplam is the first oral medication against SMA, a congenital neuromuscular disorder marked by progressive muscle weakness, loss of movement control and muscle wasting, and classified as a "rare disease". Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche has a patent on risdiplam in India until 2035.

Beeran, in a letter to Union health minister J.P. Nadda, has said the maximum retail price of one bottle of risdiplam in India is ₹6,20,835. The cost of using risdiplam can range from ₹72 lakh for children to ₹1.8 crore for adults, he wrote in the letter.

However, Melissa Barbar, a public health researcher at Yale University in the US, has estimated that generic versions of risdiplam could be priced at ₹3,024 per patient per year.

"This clearly shows that the quest for high-profit results in the denial of a dignified life to SMA patients,” Beeran wrote.