New Delhi, Oct. 12 -- The Supreme Court on Monday called for a broader examination of drug pricing in the country, questioning why the Centre's proposed regulation of trade margins was limited to cancer medicines and urging it to consider excessive markups across the pharmaceutical market, including medical devices.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta took note of the Centre's decision to impose a 30 per cent cap on trade margins for specified cancer drugs but sought to know why similar scrutiny could not extend to other medicines.

"This relates to only cancer drugs. What about the overall?" asked the bench.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench that the Union government would notify a list of cancer drugs to whic...