More Time: Hearing on interferon production put off

LAHORE: Justice Muhammad Khalid Mehmood Khan of the Lahore High Court postponed hearing of a petition seeking instructions to use inexpensive locally manufactured interferon injections to treat hepatitis-C. The hearing was adjourned till July 17 as Asma Jahangir, counsel for the Ministry of Science and Technology, could not appear before the court. At the previous hearing, Jehangir sought time to file a reply on behalf of the ministry. The judge adjourned the hearing with directions to respondents to file an objection, if any, on the commission’s report. The petitioners had said that Professor Dr Riazuddin Sheikh, former director of Centre for Applied Molecular Biology, University of Punjab, had developed an inexpensive an interferon injection. They alleged that “a mafia of multinational pharmaceutical companies and the Ministry of Science and Technology had placed hurdles in the way of selling the cheap injection in the market”.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 12^th, 2014.