Jang Economic Session: ‘Facilitate industry to lower medicine prices’

LAHORE: Prices of various medicines are much lower in Pakistan when compared with the same in India, Bangladesh and other countries while real bone of contention is government policy due to which pharmaceutical industry has been facing huge problems, including the high cost of raw material and power tariff.

These views were expressed by experts at Jang Economic Session on ‘how public can get cheap and quality medicines’. The panellists were Amjad Ali Jawa, Kh Shahzaib Akram, Sajida Mir, Asad Shuja-ur-Rehman, and Muhammad Zaka-ur-Rehman while the session was hosted by Sikandar Lodhi.

Amjad Ali Jawa said that pharmaceutical industry also wanted to lower down the prices similar like the government and public besides following the international standards but the government should facilitate the industry for it.

He said adoption of medicine pricing on its generic formula on same price is crucial. He said in Pakistan, medicines are produced as per international standards. He called for ending the monopoly of the three to four companies and suggested to improve the medicines procurement policy. He suggested zero-tolerance on pricing equality.

Kh Shahzaib Akram said that quality of medicines was more important than the pricing. He said 90 percent of raw material of pharmaceutical industry was imported from China, India and Europe while industry was facing numerous issues due to "indifferent" attitude of the government while international companies had closed business in Pakistan. He said 90 percent of medicines demand was met by local industry besides exporting to 70 countries and stood on 7th position in the world in quality of medicines.

He claimed that health department officials are unable to understand the issue of the industry and focus on protecting their jobs. Sajida Mir said that neglect of the government on pharmaceutical industry was causing costly life saving drugs so medication is expensive for commoners. She called for revisiting the concept of people pharmacy while fake medicines scandals in public hospital exposed the inability of the government to control this mechanism. She said different pricing of one generic medicine was cause of nuisance for public.

She suggested giving subsidies to pharmaceutical industry besides improving the situation of public hospitals. Asad Shuja-ur-Rehman said that cost of drugs production increased when produced at international standards.

He said medicines prices were higher in India and Bangladesh despite having indigenous raw material while in Pakistan 70 percent of medicines were cheaper than India and Bangladesh. He said impression was given with increase in one medicine price that all medicines prices were increased which was incorrect.

He said if government will not consider the priorities of pharmaceutical industry then in future industry will also likely to operate on Indian model in which exporting medicines will be produced on modern plants and local on outdated plants. He said last time medicines rates were increased in 2001 since then it were not reviewed due to which number of life saving drugs are in shortage or not produced.

Muhammad Zaka-ur-Rehman said that prices were directly related to quality while facilitation to local industry was crucial to ensure treatment of hepatitis and other diseases. He said if local industry will not exist then local demand will not be fulfilled.

He claimed that the government was spending money on expensive medicines. He called for improvement in the system and evolving the proper mechanism for drugs procurement instead of giving subsidies.