Pharmaceutical sector: Pakistan lags behind Bangladesh for failure to devise pricing policy

While the Pakistani authorities are still mulling over the pricing mechanism of pharmaceutical products in Pakistan, Bangladesh, a nation that started its journey way after Pakistan, has become a huge name nowadays within the international Pharmaceutical sector, said industry sources.
Currently, Bangladesh Pharmaceutical Industry exports active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) along with a huge variety of pharmaceutical products, covering all major therapeutic classes and dosage forms, to 79 nations while meeting 97 percent of its local demand.
Along with regular forms like tablets, capsules and syrups, Bangladesh also exports high-tech specialised products like HFA inhalers, CFC inhalers, suppositories, nasal sprays, injectables, IV infusions, etc. These products have been well accepted by medical practitioners, chemists, patients and the regulatory bodies of all of their importing nations. Furthermore, the packaging and the presentation of the products is comparable to any international standard.
The reason behind their success is strong policy support to the industry by government. According to the policy, Government determines Maximum Retail Prices (MRP) of 117 fundamental drug chemical substances. However, this price determination is solely for the local producer companies and whereas the multinational organisations are determining their price by their own way.
Despite this, prices have not shot up and healthy competition has been keeping the prices within affordable levels. The industry experts from Bangladesh claim that the actual potential is even higher. The country needs to enhance its infrastructure and capabilities and the manufacturers should have adequate backing from the government to realise that potential.
On the other hand, Pakistan is still held up at devising and implementation of a strategic pricing policy for its manufacturers. According to industry experts the delay in formulation of the pricing policy is badly impacting the availability of quality medicine. They revealed that drug manufacturers have submitted requests for revision in prices of thousands of drug formulation.
The decision making they added is extremely slow as requests made years back are still pending. They said if the DRA lacks the capacity and capability to take quick and prudent decisions on drug pricing the government should link the prices of all drugs to the average price of similar medicines in the neighbouring countries. Bangladesh health sector has experienced rapid growth over the past two decades and it is for this reason they have managed to get four FDA approved plants whereas Pakistan doesn't even have one.
Furthermore, they have also gained a tremendous volume of parental products due to which they not only have become self-sufficient, but also are exporting to a number of nations. All this development in Bangladesh pharma sector is attributed to rigorous and efficacious efforts of the drug regulatory authorities in implementing a strategic pricing plan.
The pharma industry in Bangladesh has been undergoing vigorous growth over the last few years. A local industry supporting drug policy and effective regulatory framework, along with TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) relaxations are the main reasons for triumph of the industry. Therefore, instead of trying to follow its Indian counterpart to excogitate its pricing policy, the DRAP should start following the footsteps of nations who have achieved success within this sector globally and locally.
Local market in Bangladesh grew at 23 per cent in 2010, while import reached USD 50 million landmark. A lot of companies got accreditations from USA, UK, Australia and various other developed markets, and are in process towards further expansion into the developed markets. Furthermore, firms are gearing themselves for post 2016 scenario, when TRIPS will be obligated. Almost all the firms are upgrading their facilities and taking up precautions for post 2016 scenario, while aggressively expanding in both local and export markets whereas the Pakistani Pharma sector is still stuck at the hope of finalisation of a drug pricing policy. Sources said that some of Pakistani companies are also considering establishing their manufacturing unit in Bangladesh, though the reports have been denied by the associations so far officially.