KARACHI (February 04 2010): The Ministry of Health (MoH) has decided to introduce cost-based price policy for pharmaceutical manufacturers and has started to formulate the production cost of 60,000 drugs to complete the task. According to sources, the delegation of Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) held meeting with Federal Minister for Health to finalise price policy for the drug manufacturers.

The medicine manufacturers refused the government cost based price formula due to variation in cost of production and decided to close manufacturing units if it would be introduced. "The MoH has decided to formulate production cost of over 60,000 drugs to introduce a uniform drugs price policy across the country, sources said, adding that the delegation of drug manufacturers have shown disappointment over the government's decision and asked health department to revoke its decision."

Sources said the delegation of local drug manufacturers apprised the government that raw material and cost of medicines' production varies from company to company. They clarified that the drug manufacturers import raw material from different countries and import cost varies from country to country, but have failed to convince health authorities.

During the meeting, the local drug manufacturers blamed that MoH is not competent to fix price policy and has failed to address the problem of commercial sector. They were of the view that the government should appoint financial experts to formulate price policy and to monitor cost of drug production.

The delegation also demanded to give them status of member in the Drug Registration Board (DRB) instead of an observer. "Secretary Health assured that the government would consider their demand and would give them a status of member of the board," they added.

Talking to Business Recorder, Ex-Chairman PPMA Qaiser Waheed said the decision of the government would encourage manufacturing of substandard drugs in the country. He said the government is likely to announce an average cost formula in the price policy, which would never be accepted to drug manufacturers.

He said the cost of local drugs varies from company to company and raw material used in the manufacturing of specific drugs. There are different types of raw materials and every company uses raw materials of different kind so how is it possible to introduce a cost based price policy, he argued. "If the government implement the price based policy, the local investment would dry-up, substandard drugs would be prepared in the country and medicine export to other companies would become zero," he warned.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2010