Pakistan's pharma industry contracts, blames overregulation

Drug-maker says sector in crisis as 50,000 workers have lost their jobs

LAHORE:

Pakistan has one of the highest ratios of regulated drugs, which is creating innumerable issues for the development and growth of pharmaceutical industry.

“Our regulated drugs are even more in quantity than our neighbouring countries India and Bangladesh, which shows our policymakers are not adopting rational policies,” said stakeholders of the pharmaceutical sector.

“Globally, there is a list of essential drugs which are regulated and all other drugs are deregulated. Pakistan has more than 90,000 drugs that are regulated. It is humanly not possible to set prices individually,” said a drug manufacturer on condition of anonymity.

He added that only 117 drugs were regulated by the government of Bangladesh, while India too had a few essential drugs that were being regulated. China also does not have a large number of regulated drugs.

He added that in Pakistan the government frequently flouted its own policies, which was resulting in overall contraction of the industry.

“The role of the regulator is to ensure the quality and availability of drugs,” said an executive of one of the country’s biggest pharmaceutical company. He added that the pharmaceutical sector was facing a deep crisis as more than 50,000 workers had lost their jobs in the past two years.

“Owing to inconsistent government policies, more than 50,000 workers in the pharmaceutical industry have lost their jobs in the last two years.”

He highlighted that pricing had been the key issue affecting the whole industry since 2001, but successive governments never took the issue seriously.

For instance, he added, the government recently permitted a 10% price increase to the industry in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation under its drug pricing policy.

However, the Ministry of National Health Services stated that there would be no immediate increase in drug prices. “This is against the spirit of the directives given by the Supreme Court, under which the pricing formula was decided and the Drug Pricing Policy 2018 was approved,” he said.

The policy granted the manufacturers the right to automatically increase prices annually by 7% and 10% without government intervention.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2020.

Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.