Over the last few years Pakistan’s pharmaceutical market went through a dramatic transformation from multinational companies-based market to home-grown pharmaceutical companies-based market.
When the MNCs arrived in Pakistan the local pharmaceutical industry was almost non-existent. The MNCs were taking almost 95% share of the market. Now the situation is reversed. The MNCs’ share has reduced to 25.49% (IQVIA, 2024). A good 75 % of the medicine market is dominated by the local pharmaceutical companies.
After the implementation of the Drugs Act in 1976, there were over 40 world class foreign pharmaceutical firms present in the country. The presence of a number of multinational firms has played a significant role in technology transfer and capacity building for the local pharmaceutical industry.
These firms entered Pakistan driven by attractive market opportunities, large population with growing quality healthcare needs, strategic location of the country, favourable regulatory policies, and government support. Over the years much of these attractions mellowed down.
The growth of local pharmaceutical industry ushered a pricing level in the market which challenged the pricing working of multinationals. Also the government adopted a price control policy not favoured by the multinationals. The multinational companies represented by Pharma Bureau have consistently urged the government to prioritise the control of quality over prices, specifically in relation to fixing the prices of essential medicines.
The uneven playing field, where price prevailed over quality and reliability, made many multinational pharmaceutical manufacturing companies to exit the Pakistan market. Some of them were bought over by local groups while many closed their manufacturing facilities and limited their activities to marketing and sale of their imported products.
DRAP has licenced more than 650 pharmaceutical units. Today there are only 21 multinational pharma companies manufacturing and marketing human pharmaceutical products. Out of these 21, only four companies own their manufacturing plants in Pakistan.
The pharmaceutical market is now dominated by local manufacturers. Some of them have alliances with offshore pharma industry and access to their research and regulatory frameworks. They have developed a reputation for themselves in quality and reliability of their products. Whereas, many are out of this orbit and this is where the fault line lies and poses a risk to human lives
The Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP) has this week issued an immediate recall alert for a number of substandard, falsified and spurious pharmaceutical products after receiving various complaints from provincial health authorities and senior drug inspector Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
According to DRAP, the Directorate of Drugs Control (DDC) Punjab and Senior Drug Inspector ICT Islamabad have informed DRAP that samples of the many pharma products have been reportedly found to be substandard due to presence of impurities by Drug Testing Laboratory (DTL) Lahore and Rawalpindi.
According to the DRAP, the use of substandard products can result in therapy failure, increasing the risk of complications, particularly in vulnerable groups such as immuno compromised individuals, as well as pediatric and geriatric population.
The DRAP, following the information, started a crackdown against all such products and has issued recall alerts with directions to the National Regulatory Field Force (NRFF), provincial drug control departments, pharmacists, chemists in distribution, pharmacies/medical stores, healthcare professionals- physicians, pharmacists, nurses at hospitals/clinics general public to stop the use of purchase, sale, prescription and use of following drugs.
The pharmaceutical companies put on notice are widespread and functional in all parts of the country, notably: Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Multan, Rawalpindi and Peshawar.
Pharmaceutical MNCs played a crucial role in the Pakistani pharmaceutical industry, and their contributions in terms of innovation, quality of products and access to advanced treatments have established a benchmark of quality and reliability in the pharma market of Pakistan. Much of the local pharmaceutical industry has not been able to scale up to the benchmark set by multinationals in the medicine market of Pakistan.
DRAP has to do better than carry out a one-time sweep by recalling the medicines from the shelves of the pharmacies and puting some manufactures on notice. It has to dig into the root-cause and work out solutions in consultation with the industry. The root-cause is product quality and reliability, lack of research and lack of systematic regulatory control by DRAP. Medicine is all about human lives.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The writer is a former President of Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI)
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