Economists claimed the Drug Regulatory Authority is having a cavalier attitude to perform its prime responsibility of ensuring provision of quality medicines.
Commenting on a shortage of drugs, the economists believed the poor are being pushed to the wall as hospitals and lab charges have increased manifold while the government, in quest of keeping the prices in check has ruined the industry, thus taking affordable and low priced products out of production lines as they became unviable for industry.
"Nowhere in the world the prices are frozen for such a long time as it only destroys the viability mechanism of drugs which only result in shortage of the product'" the economists said.
A market survey claims many drugs critically needed in today's changing weather conditions are off the shelves either because of price feuds between the industry and the authority, or simply because of companies stopping production citing loss on manufacturing of the same.
"The Drug Regulatory Authority and the Drug Regulations Ministry are seemingly indifferent or ignorant to the basic principle of free market and competition driven market, because it has been 13 years the drug industry was allowed to increase the prices of medicines," renown economist Syed Ali Hassan said.
He said after 12 years the Federal Ministry of Health on November 28, 2013 issued a notification on increasing prices of about 40 percent of medicines by 15 percent but the premier ordered to withdraw the notification later. The move was a mere political stunt ignoring the fact that it would hurt patients in the long run, he added.
"It is eventually happening as production of many drugs is discontinued and patients are compelled to buy expensive imported drugs. On the other hand, being cheaper in region, drugs worth of millions of rupees are being smuggled to regional countries. One can easily imagine how difficult it is for a single product, let alone an industry, to survive a price freeze for last 13 years," he mentioned.
He further said, "In the past few years, at least four multinationals have wrapped up manufacturing businesses from Pakistan purely because of uncertain environment and heavy unnecessary regulations and recent reports suggested that few others are also weighing their options to do so.
At times when Pakistan is striving hard to attract foreign direct investment, policies and decision like these hurt investors' sentiments. It will not only discourage coming investors but result in flight of existing capital as well. The industry has always suggested to the government to follow the regional formula of regulation in this regard, but the government never paid any attention to this suggestion."
It is obvious that a majority of the medicines manufactured in Pakistan are priced lower in comparison to South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries.
"In this collision, patients are suffering as many products are currently not available in the market," a chemist salesman said.
"Patients have no choice but to buy expensive, imported drugs or order them through pharmacies. So many medicines remain currently short, while many companies are exiting Pakistan on the pretext of strict regulatory climate, specifically the pricing policy that has crippled the industry," he added.
Pakistan Chemists and Druggists Association Secretary General Asim Jamil said, "The regulation of drugs is not benefitting stakeholders and the public. This is resulting in the shortage of drugs and failure to sustain a workable business structure for stakeholders.
The authorities must realise that collapse of businesses will eventually collapse the medical practice in Pakistan, which is already in the happening. A classic example is penicillin. There used to be a time when 51 companies in Pakistan were manufacturing it but because of the government's regulatory policy and not allowing rational increase, not a single company is producing penicillin."
He further said, "This situation left millions of patients deserving the treatment to turn towards more expensive, second or third generation advanced antibiotics, sometimes imported at high costs. And then the poor patients of Pakistan suffered in the end as not a single company manufactures or markets this drug and the patients are worried who to blame for this fiasco."
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