Drug pricing

Prices of drugs in Pakistan have always been on the higher side. It has lacked rationality in retailing as the government and pharmaceutical coterie kept on swinging the pendulum at the altar of the masses. Thus, the common man is fleeced to the core and, moreover, the menace of adulterated medicine pushes life to the brink.

It is common knowledge that the government caves in to demands from the drugs manufacturing cartel, and this time also the ECC followed suit. The decision to raise the prices of medicines up to 20% in retail, and cap the rise for essential drugs at 14% has come as another rude shock to those reeling under abject poverty and a relentless inflation. The catch-22 is that the drug manufacturers still exhibited the audacity to demand more, and are unhappy with the scale of escalation in prices.

This is tantamount to a mafia mindset, and the government must deeply probe into the nexus in a rare endeavour to stand with the masses. The science and mechanics of drugs production in Pakistan is a mystery. Pharmaceutical companies mint money, and thrive on other ends by grabbing concessions in taxation, and import of raw material too. The point is that no research and analysis has been undertaken to manufacture cheap drugs by making use of indigenous formulae with locally available abundant raw material.

India and many developing countries, however, have done that and have come up with a divergent and competent shelf of choices for people from all strata of life. The drug regulators must work on a two-pronged strategy to reset the paradigm of medicine supplies in Pakistan. One, essential drugs and those related to life-saving and critical illnesses should be available at ease, and their prices strictly kept on the lower side.

Two, efforts should be undertaken to localise the manufacturing through indigenous material as much as possible, and rebate be introduced as part of health policy. Last but not least, the monopoly of foreign companies that act to scuttle the local production must be checked vehemently