Cancellation of licences: Pharma companies ask govt to review its decision

Licences of 14 firms have been revoked for producing ‘spurious drugs’

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) appealed to the federal government on Monday to review its decision of cancelling licences of 14 pharmaceutical companies.

Speaking at a press conference, PPMA officials Chaudhry Ansar Farooq, Malik Arshad and Arshad Mehmood Awan asked the government to resolve the matter in accordance with the Drugs Act.

They said the Punjab government had written a letter to the federal health ministry and asked it to take action against the 14 pharmaceutical companies whose medicines were declared substandard.

However, the officials said the decision should be taken in accordance with the national and international regulations and expressed hope that PPMA delegations, which were holding meetings with the federal government, would help resolve the matter.



Farooq said the PPMA was ready to deal with these cases in accordance with the Drugs Act.

He pointed out that despite inflation the local pharmaceutical industry had not increased drug prices since 2001, adding the manufacturers were producing drugs at affordable prices in order to give relief to the people.

“There is a policy of 8% cap on increase in drug prices in hardship cases and the industry cannot raise prices of such medicines,” said Farooq.

Several multinational pharmaceutical companies moved to court for seeking approval for increasing the drug prices, however, the PPMA didn’t resort to litigation for the purpose, he added.

The PPMA official said the association was against the marketing of spurious drugs and wanted to take stern action against the illegal business, adding many people were running the illegal business and producing drugs of established brands at the local level.

He insisted that the local pharma industry was producing drugs in line with the national and international standard operating procedures.

There were issues of long-time storage of medicines, he said and made it clear that the industry had nothing to do with the matter as every company clearly mentioned the precaution on every batch of drugs.

The official sought support of the authorities concerned to ensure the pharmaceutical industry was capable of producing safe, effective and affordable medicines.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2016.

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