Non-essential drugs: Medicines widely available after deregulation

KARACHI: Nearly all medicines required by Pakistani patients are now widely available at local pharmacies, following the government’s move to deregulate prices of non-essential drugs, industry representative said.

Officials, pharmaceutical industry representatives, and health experts say the decision has effectively ended years of chronic shortages and curbed black-market profiteering.

They said the policy shift has restored patient access to life-saving treatments, reduced counterfeit drugs, and revived confidence in the pharmaceutical supply chain.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers, speaking to journalists in Karachi, said deregulation reversed a crisis that had left patients scrambling for basic and critical medicines.

“For a long time, essential drugs like insulin, tuberculosis treatments, and even over-the-counter painkillers such as Panadol were missing from pharmacies because their government-fixed prices were far below production cost,” said Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufactur-ers Association (PPMA) Chairman Tauqeer ul Haq.

He explained that with inflation, currency devaluation, and rising global raw material costs, production at the old rates became impossible.

“A tablet that cost Rs 3 to the patient couldn’t be manufactured even at that price. Deregulation allowed the same tablet to be priced at Rs. 6, which brought it back to the market,” he said.

Health experts also endorsed the change, saying it reduced black-market exploitation and improved the supply of quality medicines.

Deregulation, introduced at the end of 2023, applies only to non-essential medicines, while more than 460 essential drugs remain under strict government price control to safeguard affordability.

Even provincial drug administration officials across all four provinces and federally administered regions confirmed that nearly all medicines are now available in the market. They said shortages that previously created space for counterfeit products have largely been eliminated.

A joint survey by PPMA and Pharma Bureau, supported by a recent IQVIA report, found that post-deregulation prices for the top 100 pharmaceutical brands increased by an average of 16.5 percent. Industry officials clarified, however, that much of this rise came from prior hardship price adjustments and new product introductions rather than deregulation alone.

According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the Consumer Price Index for medicines in June 2025 showed urban prices rising by 13.05 percent and rural prices by 15.3 perent—still lower than inflation in many other sectors.

Officials highlighted that previously scarce drugs, including anti-epileptics, psychiatric medicines, and certain cancer therapies, are now widely available. Unit sales of medicines have also improved, with IQVIA reporting a rise in market volume growth from 0.8 percent in 2023 to 3.6 percent this year.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025