Minister for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Aamer Mehmood Kiani on Saturday directed Auditor General of Pakistan to conduct special audit of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) to control the prices of medicines.
The minister said that the special audit will help ensure access of the people to the low-cost and standardised medicines. The ministry has, however, not clarified as to how long the special audit will take and if the Auditor General of Pakistan will also conduct audit of the individual pharmaceutical manufacturing companies.
Last week, the minister said the government was committed to controlling the illegal price hike of medicines while warning a strict action against the pharmaceutical companies that were violating the rules. Explaining about the recent surge in drug prices, he said the official hike was about 15-19 percent because of increase in dollar rate. The present drug policy was approved by the previous government on the directives of the Supreme Court, he said, adding that the pharmaceutical industry is providing employment to thousands of people in the country.
On the other hand, the DRAP has claimed to have seized stocks of 83 medicines and registered cases against 28 pharmaceutical companies in a countrywide action against unauthorised and illegal hike in prices of medicines.
Chairman Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) Zahid Saeed said the government had placed a bar on increase in drugs prices since 2001-02 which incurred the losses of over Rs 120 billion per annum to the industry.
He said the national pharmaceutical exports have also declined from $250 million to $100 million over the last five years due to poor policies of the government.
Saeed said the US dollar has reached Rs 143 per dollar from Rs 60 per dollar since 2001-02, but the government allowed only 15 percent increase in the drugs prices in January this year.
During the same period, every input cost from labour to raw material, gas and petrol prices have increased manifold, but industry was not allowed to increase the prices as per rates on input, he said. He said that in past one year around 125 new medicines related to cancer, heart diseases and other serious diseases have been introduced worldwide but Pakistanis cannot benefit from these drugs as there is no pricing mechanism available for new drugs.
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