Pharma Bureau asks govt to form review committee

Approval of current draft could lead to severe shortage of essential medicines.

LAHORE: The Pharma Bureau, a representative body of research-based multinational pharmaceutical companies, has urged the government, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and State Minister Saira Afzal Tarar to avert a potential drug crisis by constituting a committee to review the draft of the Drug Pricing Policy.

“We want the policy to incorporate predictability, transparency, quality and product availability to encourage investment in quality manufacturing, incentives and exports. The committee must also ensure the prevention of unscrupulous/ unregistered sector from flooding the market with fake and substandard products,” said Pharma Bureau Chairman Shahab Rizvi and Co-chairman Arshad Saeed Khan.

“We have expressed our serious reservations about this draft to the government,” he said, adding that the policy, if approved, would result in severe shortage of essential and life-saving medicines.

According to them, the proposed cut of 45% in drug prices (which have not been increased for the last 13 years) will not only render their production unviable, but will also result in an influx of smuggled fake and spurious drugs.

Moreover, it would deprive the patients from the benefits of the latest research work as no further introduction of new therapies would be possible. This policy also poses a threat to the continuation of patient access programmes under which thousands of poor critically ill patients are provided with latest life-saving therapies for free.

Saeed was of the view that Pakistan’s ability to evolve a predictable and transparent investment environment for the pharmaceutical sector will be in the long-term interest of the public and the country. “By implementing a policy competitively aligned with other countries in the region and also aligned with the World Health Organisation guidelines, the country can benefit significantly in terms of foreign direct investment, exports, job creation, provision of affordable quality medicines and other vital economic benefits.”

“Such policy would safeguard the interests of both investors and consumers because in the context of 600-plus local companies, an individual cost-plus based approach is not practical and could give rise to transparency and public/media concerns. A comparative benchmarking based pricing mechanism may also be more defensible in the public eye,” they added.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2015.

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