Many critically needed drugs are off the shelves due to price feud between the industry and Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), it was leant on Tuesday. Market sources link the shortage of essential medicines to the ongoing row between the industry and DRAP over pricing issue, as the companies have stopped their production citing loss on manufacturing.
Experts said that nowhere in the world, drug prices were frozen for such a long time as it only destroyed the viability mechanism of drugs, resulting in shortage of the products.
They said that many medicines currently remained short in the market, while some companies were exiting Pakistan on the pretext of strict regulatory conditions, particularly the pricing policy that had crippled the industry.
Giving an example of Penicillin, industry sources said that there was a time when 51 companies in Pakistan were manufacturing it, but due to government's regulatory policy, barring rational increase, not a single company was now producing Penicillin.
"This situation has compelled millions of patients to switch to more expensive, second or third generation advanced antibiotics, sometimes imported at high costs," the sources said.
"DRAP and the Ministry are seemingly indifferent or ignorant to the basic principle of free and competition-driven market, because it has been 13 years since the drug industry was allowed to increase the prices of medicines," said an economist Syed Ali Hassan.
He said that after 12 years, the Federal Ministry of Health on November 28, 2013, issued a notification to increase the prices of about 40 percent of medicines by 15 percent, but the Prime Minister ordered to withdraw the notification the very next day. "The move was a mere political stunt, ignoring the fact that it will hurt patients in the long run. It is eventually happening, as the production of many drugs has been discontinued and patients are compelled to buy expensive imported drugs. On the other hand, being cheaper in the region, drugs worth millions of rupees are being smuggled to regional countries," he added.
He said that one could easily imagine how difficult it was for a single product, let alone an industry, to survive a price freeze for 13 years.
In the past few years, at least four multinationals have wrapped up their manufacturing businesses in Pakistan, purely due to uncertain environment and heavy regulation. Recent reports suggest that few more companies are also weighing their options to do so.
At times when Pakistan is striving hard to attract FDI, policies and decisions like these hurt the investors' sentiments. It will not only discourage investors but result in the flight of capital as well.
The industry has always suggested to the government to follow the regional formula of regulation, but the government never paid attention to this suggestion.
It is worth mentioning here that majority of the medicines manufactured in Pakistan are lower in prices as compared to other Saarc countries.
"The drug regulation is not benefiting both the stakeholders and the general public. This is resulting in shortage of drugs and failing to sustain a workable business structure for the stakeholders," said Secretary General, Pakistan Chemists & Druggists Association (PCDA,) M Asim Jamil. He said that patients had no choice but to buy expensive, imported drugs or order them through pharmacies.
He said the authorities must realise that the collapse of businesses would eventually collapse the medical practice in Pakistan, which was already in the happening.
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