ISLAMABAD: The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has warned pharmacies, medical stores, and wholesale distributors on stockpiling of drugs especially, paracetamol and other fever/pain controlling medicines at this critical moment.
Any attempt at hoarding of drugs is a punishable offence and legal action will be taken against perpetrators, the DRAP Chief Executive Officer (CEO),Asim Rauf, said when contacted.
He said that the availability of paracetamol is currently under pressure due to higher than usual demand and international disruption of the supply of the medicine’s active ingredient.
Availability is lower than usual despite, a 13 percent increase in production of this tablet by the leading manufacturer.
It is anticipated that the raw material availability will improve in a couple of weeks. The DRAP also requested the consumers to avoid overstocking medicines at their homes.
According to drug dealers and medical store operators, the shortage was created by the drug manufactures in a bid to increase the prices of the fever/pain relief related-drugs and within the next few days, the government will approve the price increase.
In this context, Business Recorder asked the Federal Secretary Ministry of National Health Services and Regulations, Amir Khawaja, but he declined to respond.
However, the pharmaceutical industry officials confirmed the move of increasing Panadol /paracetamol prices from Rs340 per pack of 200 tablets to Rs530 per pack of 200 tablets, saying the DRAP has approved the increase, which will be notified within the next couple of days.
The officials of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association (PPMA) said that that the prices of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) of the common medicine, which is imported from China over the past years owning to rupee depreciation and other factors related to demand/supply situation have increased manifolds and the industry was unable to import costlier raw material and sell it far below the market prices.
Dr Kaiser Waheed Sheikh, a senior member of the PPMA, said that the prices of the raw material used to make Panadol/paracetamol have jumped from Rs600 per kg to Rs2,600, while the government was insisting that drug manufacturers should sell the medicine at Rs1.90 per tablet, while the production cost has increased to Rs2.30 per tablet.
Waheed said that the PPMA was under immense pressure from their members to halt production of medicines and close down their factories over imposition of 17 percent sales tax on the import of medicines’ raw material, saying the government was imposing the sales tax on the pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would result in enhancing prices of medicines in Pakistan.
He said that Pakistani pharma industry annually was importing raw material worth Rs150 billion and the imposition of 17 percent GST will immediately put an additional burden of Rs25.5 billion on the industry, adding that despite that the government had assured the pharma industry that the GST on raw material will be refundable but a majority of the local pharma companies are not in a position to bear such financial burden for an indefinite time.
He said that owing to the imposition of the GST on drug raw material, the pharma industry has just two options either close down business or pass it on the end consumers by increasing the prices.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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