LAHORE – Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) has stressed the need of updating existing drug laws in line with the global trends in the larger interest of the patients and pharma industry.
“Local industries are closing down due to historically high input cost, highest inflation and interest rates in Asia. Multinationals are disappearing due to excessive regulations. Now only four MNCs are operating in the country who have reported historically high losses recently. Patients are the ultimate sufferers and the situation is going from bad to worse”, PPMA chairman Mian Khalid Misbah said, adding that there was need of timely government intervention for saving pharma industry in the larger interests of the country and the ailing humanity.
“World has moved forward and we are still where we were decades ago. India is determining prices of 384 medicines mentioned in the WHO’s essential drug list. Bangladesh has gone even one step further by regulating only 117 drugs. Rest are left to the market forces. Availability of medicines is better in these countries and that too at a comparatively low prices due to open competition. Moreover, they are earning billions of dollars of foreign exchange through exports”, he said, adding that drugs export of India was more than $28 billion annually.
He appreciated the Federal Government step of deregulating prices of non-essential drugs, saying that this will provide much needed oxygen for survival of pharma industry and attract investment. He said that much more needed to be done to bring the pharma sector regulations up to mark of neighbouring countries and make it an attractive market for investment. “Inordinate delays in fixing/revising prices of hundreds of essential drugs have caused severe shortage. For example, delay in hardship price revision of Tegral (medicine for seizures) resulted it in being sold at Rs3,000 or more which is four times the proposed revised price. Such long unnecessary delays result in counterfeit and smuggled medicines to enter the market and patients fare the worst. Timely implementation of policies will improve medicines availability, attract FDI and cause MNCs to stay in Pakistan”, Mr Misbah said, adding that government should increase health budget from 1% to 2% to give free life-saving essential drugs to the patients at government hospitals like other countries in the world.