There are over 600 local pharma manufacturing units in Pakistan and this alone is evidence enough for a healthy competition amongst the pharma industry. Rather than spending its resources on unrealistic price controls, the Drug Regulator Authority Pakistan (DRAP) needs to focus on the real issues like quality and the availability of life saving drugs and make the industry viable in the interest of the patients of Pakistan.
"Lack of critical and life-saving medicines is an eventuality in a price-controlled environment and a nightmare for poor patients in absence of fallback options for the government which has declined to follow its own pricing policy devised more than a year ago, claimed pharmacy industry sources. "Price controls are never a long-term or a favourable solution for both the government and patients. Market forces determining prices of products are the best way forward for the Pakistan pharmacy industry," they said.
"The pharmaceutical industry has been demanding free pricing set by competitive forces or referencing to other countries with similar socio-economic indicators, such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, as more transparent method of fixing prices of registered medicines. Let's look at the ground realities. Price control impacts businesses, economy and the patients in multiple ways. It reduces the incentives for manufacturers to continue production of medicines as all other resources and materials used to manufacture keep on increasing."
The sources further said, "Once a company realises that the medicine in question is no longer viable, it may cut back resources for production resulting in less volume. This may be a first step to a complete shutdown of manufacturing. Although, there may be other players in the market, they will not take up manufacturing of a product that is not feasible financially.
"If the government puts the issues of the shortages of lifesaving medicines on priority, they must introduce incentives for the manufacturers to ensure or operate a manufacturing unit themselves meeting the demands of the local market. The government may also opt to import the medicines but this may be an expensive proposition as medicines are cheaper in Pakistan than majority of the countries where they are produced.
"Medicine prices are amongst the cheapest in Pakistan - 10 tablets of paracetamol cost less than Rs 10. In fact, most of the commonly used tablets and syrups have a price threshold of less than 2 or 3 rupees per dose. Ensuring quality to avert any untoward incident should be the utmost priority for the government. Quality lapse happens when we excessively control the prices and due to the unviability for quality manufacturers to produce drugs, less known and substandard alternatives flood the market.