Drug price increase: NAB slammed for harassing Pharmaceutical companies

Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) on Monday condemning National Accountability Bureau for harassing drug companies regarding price increase, which had been approved by Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), stating that the DRAP, instead of NAB, should deal with pharmaceutical companies.
Addressing a press conference, Chairman PPMA Kaiser Waheed Chaudhary said the pharma companies have increased drug prices, following the approval by the DRAP, adding the NAB is intervening in this regard for nothing. The leading global drug manufacturers are already leaving the country and such actions against the industry will also force local investors to stop operations, he warned.
He called for deregulation of the DRAP for making it an autonomous regulatory authority of the pharma sector and making it free from the clutches of bureaucracy. He said the regulator must take decisions in the best interests of the both manufacturers and consumers without causing undue burden or exploitation to any of the two main stakeholders concerned. Talking about the sale and availability of fake medicines in the market, he said no registered local or international company is involved in such activities.
"We are producing drugs as per the international standards. To deal with the issues related to medicine prices, the government in 2012 had established the DRAP and after the establishment of the regulator, prices of each and every medicine is being fixed by the Authority. No pharma company can fix its own prices," Chaudhary added.
There is a complex formula for fixing prices of medicine and a pharma company has to present it to the price recommending committee, which after reviewing each and every aspect of a certain product allows consumer prices, he explained. Pharmaceutical industry is making products as per international standards which can be evident from the fact that average Pakistani's age has reached 67 years now from 57 years in 1995.
He said tha Pakistani pharmaceutical industry exports medicines to 57 countries as Pakistani pharma products are available from the Philippines to Vietnam. Over the past four years, the DRAP failed to get its objectives. He lamented that the government is not treating pharmaceutical industry as an industry and as a result three international drug companies have left in the past one year in wake of wrong policies of the government.
He also asked for the establishment of a national-level Pharma Export Council to achieve its targets pertaining to increase in the annual exports of the industry to $5 billion during the next five years.
He said that with the present non-conducive policies of the government, pharma industry could not achieve its "Vision 2025" for taking medicine exports from a mere $200 million to $5 billion per year. The leader of the association said that the industry was growing at a rate of 18 per cent up to 2014, but the growth rate reduced to 10 per cent, adding that pharma sector's exports stood at $250 million on annual basis in 2012, which declined to $200 million, while India is exporting drugs worth $15 billion per annum.