Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) has stressed the need to update existing drug laws in line with global trends in the larger interest of the patients and pharma industry.

“Local industries are closing down due to historically high input cost, highest inflation and bank markup rates in Asia. Multinationals are disappearing due to excessive regulations. Now only four MNCs are operating in the country and have reported historically high losses recently. Patients are the ultimate sufferers and the situation is going from bad to worse”, PPMA chairman Mian Khalid Misbah said.

He added that there was a need for timely government intervention to save the pharma industry in the larger interests of the country and the ailing humanity.

“The world has moved forward and we are still where we were decades ago. India is determining the prices of 384 medicines mentioned in the WHO’s essential drug list. Bangladesh has gone even one step further by regulating only 117 drugs. The rest are left to the market forces. Availability of medicines is better in these countries and that too at a comparatively low price due to open competition. Moreover, they are earning billions of dollars of foreign exchange through exports”, adding that drug exports of India were more than $28 billion annually.

He was of the strong opinion that the Federal Government has taken a big step by deregulating prices of non-essential drugs and this will provide much-needed oxygen for survival and attract investment in the sector but much more needs to be done to bring the pharma sector regulations up to mark of neighbouring countries and make it an attractive investment market.

“Inordinate delays in fixing/revising prices of hundreds of essential drugs have caused severe shortages. For example, the delay in hardship price revision of Tegral (medicine for seizures) resulted it in being sold at Rs. 3,000 or more which is 4 times the proposed revised price! "Such long unnecessary delays result in counterfeit and smuggled medicines entering the market and patients fare the worst. Timely implementation of policies will improve medicines availability, attract FDI and cause MNCs to stay in Pakistan”, he said, adding that the government should increase the health budget from 1% to 2% to give free life-saving essential drugs to the patients at government hospitals like other countries in the world.