Pharma firms raise concern over price control

Any company pullout will create a gap of $18m in market.

KARACHI: Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry is seeking a predictable and transparent regulatory environment, which includes a proper system for registration of drugs to clear the ever-increasing backlog, Pharma Bureau Chairman Arshad Saeed Hussain stated on Thursday.

He said this while speaking to media persons about the challenges being faced by the pharmaceutical industry.

Regulatory issues of the pharmaceutical sector were hindering its growth that had dropped from approximately 16% to around 8% per annum, he said, adding this was a cause of concern for the industry as well as the government.

“If a member of the Pharma Bureau – the representative body of multinational pharmaceutical companies operating in Pakistan – exits the market, it will on average create a gap of $18 million in the medicine market with 1,000 households being directly affected,” said Hussain.

Pharma Bureau Executive Director Ayesha Haq said the pharmaceutical industry was subject to the most stringent regulatory control, in particular price controls. “This is the reason companies are leaving Pakistani market as 10 years ago there were 36 multinationals and now there are just 24.”

The latest company to exit Pakistan is Johnson & Johnson. Its ‘sutures’ manufacturing facility has been shut down and the product is now imported from Dubai at a higher price. “The result is loss of investment, jobs and increase in the import bill,” she added.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 12^th, 2015.

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