The bigwigs of the pharmaceutical industry are upset with the government. On the one hand, they claim, it has wreaked havoc on local drug manufacturers by passing the 18th Amendment, which turned the health sector from a federal subject into a provincial one.
On the other hand, they say, the government is about to destroy their businesses by lifting trade restrictions that have so far protected local players from their Indian counterparts.
“Out of India’s roughly 25,000 drug manufacturers, only a 100 or so are foreign accredited, with state-of-the-art facilities and standardised, quality products. They produce high-value drugs and export to developed countries only,” said Dr Kaiser Waheed, former chairman of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) while speaking to The Express Tribune.
“It’ll be silly to think that those 100 companies will export to Pakistan once Pakistan-India trade barriers are lifted. What Pakistan will be importing in the name of free trade with India is substandard and spurious drugs produced by the overwhelming majority of the pharmaceutical industry of India that is, by and large, unregulated,” he added.
Explaining his argument, Waheed stated that unlike Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry, which is regulated by a national body called the Drug Regulatory Authority, India’s drug manufacturers operate without a central regulatory framework. “Each state in the Indian federation has its own rules, regulations and regulatory body. Sometimes rules are adhered to, sometimes not. There is no standardisation and no central authority to streamline the pharmaceutical sector.”
While shortages of everyday medicines in Pakistan’s drugstores are not unusual, the fact remains that the country’s pharmaceutical exports have been rising steadily. Although the World Trade Organisation (WTO) says Pakistan’s exports of pharmaceutical products were over $150 million in 2011, the PPMA says they are now touching the mark of $200 million a year.
So how exactly has Pakistan managed to increase its pharmaceutical exports by an annual rate of 7% for the past five years, even though it sometimes fails to meet the local demand?
“Pakistan does not export pharmaceutical products to regulated markets. We export to countries whose pharmaceutical sectors are either semi-regulated or unregulated,” says Waheed.
His bold acknowledgement of the underlying factor that is driving Pakistan’s pharmaceutical exports upwards is backed by revealing statistics. The biggest export destination for Pakistani drugs is Afghanistan, which has a considerably weak regulatory framework. With a share of almost one-fifth in Pakistan’s total exports of pharmaceutical goods to the world, Afghanistan received Pakistani drugs worth $29.1 million in 2011.
It is noteworthy that Pakistan’s pharmaceutical exports to Afghanistan have grown by 30% per annum for the last five years. Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sudan are other major export destinations for Pakistan-made drugs.
It is mainly the fear of substandard medicines flooding Pakistani drugstores that the pharmaceutical industry is opposed to unconditional easing of trade restrictions with India, says Waheed.
Currently, a large proportion of pharmaceutical products that Pakistan imports every year comes from developed countries with heavily regulated pharmaceutical sectors. Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and France are the top five exporters of pharmaceutical goods to Pakistan, according to the WTO.
Drugs coming out of the unregulated pharmaceutical sector of India will replace existing medicines of far better quality if Pakistan eases the trade policy without providing the local industry with a level playing field, says Waheed.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 7th, 2012.
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Dear Raj, You are correct in thinking I use Ayurvedic Medicine. The point I am making is that I am not aware of people dying as a result of using them. The so called polluted medicines are not shipped to America, but one suspects that the studies carried out so far, which have been quite vague, have been conducted by certain groups who do wish to see them marketed in the USA. I am certain that if anybody had died those vested interests would have let us know. Further, this contrasts quite strongly with Big Pharma. who are experiencing a high death rate, and an example of this is Viox. So far about 60,000 people who used Viox are dead, and we just do not know how many have been severely damaged. The bottom line is that we do not have enough data, and people like me who have been damaged by prescription medicine have to try alternative medicine in order to return to health, and this is just not good enough. I could write a 10,000 word dissertation on this problem, and which prescription drugs have had to be withdrawn from the market place. What I have found is that Allopathic doctors (Western Medicine) are not really sure what will happen when they subscribe many medicines, and if one reacts badly to a drug they blithely say: "you had better stop taking it". Until they get it right I will stick with Indian Ayurvedic products. I am of quite an age now, have not been damaged, and to the best of my knowledge am not suffering from arsenic poisoning.
@Sexton Blake:
You are talking probably about Indian Ayurvedic medicines. Ayurvedic medicines contain heavy metals. In USA it is not sold as medicine but as health supplement to by pass the FDA rules. Ayurveda is a different Ancient science made mainly from herbs, but also has metals. Many claim it works. I do not have any personal experience.
To anybody, who is interested, it is quite obvious that Western Big Pharma is concerned about the growing impact Indian medicine is having on their sales, and with this in mind are spreading insidious rumours that Indian products are low quality, and have doubtful ingredients such as mercury, lead and arsenic in them. This is in spite of the fact that Western Big Pharma routinely use mercury bi-products in their vaccines. Now, I am not a chemist so am not capable of analysing all medicines on the market, if anybody is. What I do know is that people are dying all the time from Western prescription medicine; 270 per day in the US alone. That is equivalent to 9/11 every 11 days, or 1 Jumbo jet crashing every day and killing everybody in it.. Further, two members of my family died due to Western prescription medicine. However, I am not aware of any deaths due to non-prescription medicine. In my particular case I developed a serious problem due to a prescription vaccine, and after using Western medicine without success for several years I discovered Indian non-prescription medicine. I have taken it for some time and can only extoll the virtues of Indian medicine.
“Pakistan does not export pharmaceutical products to regulated markets. We export to countries whose pharmaceutical sectors are either semi-regulated or unregulated,” says Waheed.
He himself admits that Pakistani products are not of high-quality. Also he says that pharma has become a provincial subject in Pakistan. Then he claims that Indian pharma companies are no good because they are regulated by states(similar to Pakistan's provinces). So how exactly are Indian products going to be worse?
Btw the small and not 'foreign accredited' companies are the one which manufacture the active agents of major European and American drug manufacturers. The same manufacturing plant will face hullabaloo for all the environmental permits it needs. So they are outsourcing the pollution to India while increasing their margins manifold. And most companies have separate procedures for export batches, where only the best quality stuff is sent out. We Indians expect much less.
Even if we assume that Indian quality is not so great, look at who purchases Pakistan's drugs. 20%(and growing) of its export pharma is dumped in Afghanistan. And see below to find out who(also WHO) is upset about India's capacity to supply meds.
quote International health organisations such as UNAIDS, UNITAID and Doctors Without Borders have raised their serious concerns that these recent trends may threaten India’s role as the chief supplier of affordable medicines to Africa and other developing countries. /quote http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/09/will-india-still-supply-cheap-drugs-to-the-world/
Inferior may be better than bogus or expired drug.
@hasan: I am afraid, some Pakistani Pharma companies may substitute harmful products to create some drama to keep Indian drugs out.
Indian Pharma companies are doing research to find out a drug which will cure the anti India attitudes of pakistan, Once the drug is ready and market opens it will be exported to Pak under the name of popular drugs.
@afzal pakistan is one of the world leaders in medicine production………
Actually yes, if you consider opium as a medicine
@Kazim Alam I am astounded reading your article. India does not need the Pakistan market - for it supplies generics to most of the developed world. Here in the United States - Just last week I noticed a sign at our local super market pharmacy (Wegmans) that they will give free one year supply of atorovastatin (generic name for Pfizer's Lipitor) to all patients. I got a new prescription from my doctor and got 3 months supply free. To my amazement the pharmacist told me that these were made by India's Ranbaxy and were top quality! I donot know how old you are but your prejudice against India could be due to two reasons. One it is a business oriented protect yourself attitude, or second you were thoroughly brain washed by anti Indian propaganda in your school, reading tainted and distorted text books when you were young..
indian medicines and drugs are the cheapest nd very low quality.......pakistani drugs and medicines are far far far superior to india and china's drugs...pakistan is one of the world leaders in medicine production.........
Ridiculous - India's pharma industry is the largest in the developing world, a global superpower in generics and a growing force in biogenerics. Further, if you have a Drug Regulatory Authority, Indian drugs that are sold in Pakistan would need to adhere to the conditions prescribed, so the argument is clearly puerile. But I agree that Pakistani pharma companies will find it tough to survive once big Indian companies like Ranbaxy, Cipla and Dr. Reddy's enter the market.
There have been enough comments (mine included) which talk about the admirable achievements of Indian Pharma Industry. However we should not lose the point that only a win-win arrangement can be sustainable. Hence the two Pharma industries should look at what they can learn from each other and where they can collaborate. It is very similar to what India and Pakistan can do in IT industry even though India is already a global leader in IT. For example when India signed the new patents and IPR agreements required under WTO in 1995, there were many doomsday predictions in India including from some leaders of Pharma industry who had enjoyed a sui-generis process Patent regime rather than the Product Patent regime and had grown large and profitable from 1970-1995. However they learnt and adapted and invested in R&D and Good Manufacturing Practices and in working the regulatory regimes in developed markets and started filing patents based on discovery and innovations and today they are a global force to reckon with. I am sure Pakistani industry too could learn from this new opening up and move the value chain with higher manufacturing standards. All the best SK
Pakistani drugs mafia bribe the doctors to sell their products. like foreign tours, AC, laptops even cars to sell their products. We need cheaper medicines in Pakistan.
All Pharma companies in India, like other parts of the world, are audited by FDA of USA for quality control. This third party audit is a gold standard. Is Pakistani Pharma Industry proposing Quality standard higher than that of US FDA? If not than sit down and keep quiet till you achieve that US FDA audit and approval.
Survival of Fittest. Protectionism is now over compete Pakistan.
Indian Pharmaceutical products are superior to Chinese products also. This is one industry where India has an edge over China and China is trying very hard to catch up with India.
India is the third largest manufacturer of drugs in the world and many of the drugs are in the approved list of WHO.It is also one the biggest supplier of anti viral drugs to Africa and quality wise it is perceived with the best,In fact many big pharma companies of the west get their drugs manufactured in India as it is low cost and high quality.certainly Pakistan need not import these drugs if it so wishes.It may do so from other countries and chances are it would be made in India.If that is acceptable India has no issues.
Make up your mind Pakistan.
Why does India need to send inferior drugs to Pakistan ? Pak has already some drug mafias .Recently there was some news regarding this .
Indian Pharma sector exported over $ 10 billion of pharma products. It is also the main supplier of anti-AIDS drugs to many UN organisations and Philanthropic Foundations like Bill Gates Foundation, Clinton Foundation etc. It is one of largest players in the world in the Generic drugs. It is has the lowest prices in the world for medicines. Some Pakistani manufacturers who have charging high prices are afraid that this will cut their market share even though Pakistani people will have access to high quality affordable drugs.
Nonsense... Indian pharma industry is $ 45 billion in 2011, and India captures 25% of World Generic drug market.. with an export of around $ 15 billion per year. Pakistan is not even considered in pharma market, forget exports. All this afghan and sri lanka is nonsense argument. As a pakistani, I would always welcome superior Indian life saving products for my family and children than the worst quality, dangerous pakistani drugs manufactured here.
This is a slanderous piece in general. The Indian generics drug industry is the manufacturer for the developing world. Pioneers like Yusuf Hamied (Cipla) have ensured that the price of Anti Retro Virals and a host of other medicines have dropped significantly and made treatment affordable for Africa. In fact in a host of RTAs (Regional Trading Arrangement) like EU-India FTA, the pharma industry becomes a sticking point due to local concerns over cheap (not qualitatively) Indian generics. The Indian exports anyway have to adhere to the stringent demands of developed world when exporting so burgeoning exports should be a sign of their overall quality.
Well India should make sure that it blocks any textile, leather, pharma, cement and light engineering products from Pakistan. Trade should be "reciprocal".
Our Pharma Industry needs to stop complaining and do what's best for themselves under this new external competition, this will result in a set of actions which will benefit the entire economy. Let the free market decide which companies will win, and which will lose. Companies producing ineffective and substandard drugs should not and will not get any business - irrespective of how cheap their products are. Fact. Basic Economics. Adam Smith.
Big Pharma always come up with the vague inferior drugs ploy, all around the world, if they do not make the drugs. After trying many big Pharma drugs and finding they did not work very well, I finally decided to try Indian medicine and it really worked for me.
Easing the trade restrictions will also benefit the Pakistan's pharmaceutical industry. Pakistan will also be able to export its medicines to India, hence the export will grow. Government should also ensure it does not import any inferior drugs from India.
shortage of medicine???....ok a question here........how many shortages does a paki face in life???
Inferior drugs ? Show me one Pharma Company in Pakistan in the league of Ranbaxy, Piramal Health care, or Cipla for that matter. India exports pharmaceuticals to Europe, North America. Sure there are inferior drugs like there are inferior drugs in every country. Take your higher then mountain friend China for example.