Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA), former vice-chairman, Khawaja Shahzeb Akram Friday said that pharma industry is facing hardship due to non-formulation of a drug regulatory authority. After the 18th constitutional amendment, he added, no steps had so far been taken for the betterment of pharma industry.
On one side, government was not taking pragmatic steps to overcome the energy crisis, while tariff of gas and petroleum products was increased manifold on the other hand, he added. According to him, high cost of doing business had hit the price of medicines. Poor people would suffer and had to purchase expensive medicines.
He said the federal government would be responsible for more increase in the prices of medicines, if made. Shahzeb also said that while giving most favoured nation status to India, pharma industry had expressed reservations over import of medicine. Though the Indian medicines are cheaper to some extent but these medicines were of low standard. He claimed that local investors were avoiding further investment in pharma sector.
"If present state of affairs could not be improved, the employees associated with pharma industry would be in trouble and the local industry would not be able to meet the medicine demand for local and foreign market," he said. He appealed the government to take immediate steps for the execution of drug regulatory authority and all matter relating to phrama industry should immediately be resolved.
Comments
Comments are closed.