The Health Ministry has failed to formulate a uniform drug policy as different brands of the same generic medicine are being sold at different prices in the market, revealed a survey carried out by Business Recorder on Thursday.
According to medicine traders at Bohar Bazaar (medicine wholesale market Rawalpindi), drug manufacturing companies like Glaxo SmithKline (GSK), Asmal, Sandoz and Bayer are using identical generic ingredients of ciprofloxacin to produce Cipval, Ciprox, Acxiu and Ciproxin capsules, but they are charging different prices for the same drug.
The survey noted that GSK is charging Rs 210 per 10 capsules of Cipval, Amsal is charging Rs 220 for per 10 capsules pack of Ciprox, Sandoz is charging Rs 250 for per 10 capsules pack of Acxiu, while Bayer is providing same drug in same quantity for Rs 504.
Traders told Business Recorder that almost 95 percent medicines available in the market are being manufactured in Pakistan, while about five percent are being imported. They said that currently Pakistan is importing oncology-related medicines (for treatment of cancers) and vaccines for polio and hepatitis.
Currently 450-500 Pakistani drug manufacturing companies and 28 multinational companies are engaged in producing medicines in Pakistan. Pakistan has a fairly well established pharmaceutical industry comprising over 500 licensed units engaged in production of a variety of dosage of almost all important therapeutic classes of drugs, traders told this scribe.
Traders said that Pakistan's total pharma market size is over Rs 100 billion with an average annual growth rate of 11.6 percent. Almost over 95 percent of these units are engaged in manufacturing of drugs by the way of formulation while there are a couple of units engaged in basic and semi basic manufacturing of pharmaceutical ingredients. But on the whole the industry relies heavily on import for meeting their requirements of pharmaceutical raw materials.
Pakistan's pharmaceutical industry is a multi-billion business and is one of the fastest growing industries in the country; however, Pakistan is still not self-sufficient in producing all types of required drugs. Traders argue that the government has failed to formulate a viable national drugs policy to address issues of affordability, safety and efficacy. They said that if the government adopts a uniform drug policy like India and other countries, Pakistani pharma sector is capable of becoming self-sufficient and would be able to get a significant share in the international market due to relatively low cost of drug production.
When contacted, President Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association (PPMA) Haroon Qasim said that the industry had time and again requested the high-ups of Health Ministry to formulate a uniform drug pricing policy, but ministry has not yet taken any positive steps in this connection. He stressed the need for a uniform drug pricing policy and said that all over the world the same price is charged for different brands of a drug manufactured by different companies.