Sit-ins disrupting supply of medicines, say pharmacists

Say work on restoring 5,000 suspended product licences has halted

LAHORE: Pharmacists have blamed the ongoing sit-in by the opposition for disrupting the supply of medicines and hindering the functioning of the apex regulator of medicines in the country.

Pakistan Young Pharmacists Association (PYPA) leader Dr Noor and WH Healthcare Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Muqadas Ali told the media on Sunday that owing to the Azadi march of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F), the offices of the drug regulator, the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP), have been closed.

The head office of DRAP is located in TF Complex which lies on Peshawar Mor. The office and the intersection have been closed since Thursday after the first of the Azadi march participants started arriving.

The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration had allocated the protesters space in Sector H-9, along Kashmir Highway to put up their tent village and to set up a stage for their leaders atop shipping containers. The city’s administration also used containers to seal routes heading to and from the protest venue apart from walling off the red zone.

Dr Noor and Ali said that pharmaceutical companies have to regularly approach DRAP for either registration of new products or to renew licences of old products or resolve other issues regarding their products.

However, they said that they had to return without completing their task because the offices of the authority have been closed owing to the sit-in.

They further added that thus far issuance of licences to some 5,000 products have been on hold besides issuing of no-objection certificates (NOCs) to many pharmaceutical companies for the import and export their products have been postponed.

Moreover, around 150 pharmaceutical companies have their offices in Islamabad while a further 80 pharmaceutical units are working on the outskirts of the federal capital.

With a large number of shipping containers and trucks commandeered by the federal government to help block routes leading to the red zone in the federal capital, they said that companies were facing a shortage of containers to dispatch their products while the roads blocks set up were also hampering supply of essential medicines from pharmaceutical units located in the city.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2019.