KARACHI: Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) has warned that unless the prices of around 500 essential drugs were increased, the companies would stop producing the same, as manufacturing on prevalent prescribed prices was not viable.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, Chairman PPMA Zahid Saeed said cost of producing medicine was directly influenced with the rupee dollar parity as around 90 percent of the inputs were imported.
Saeed said due to the regulated prices, more than 50 percent of the registered 45,000 drugs had vanished from the market.
“Cheaper drugs have vanished as their manufacturing was not viable, and now people have to buy dearer and third generation medicine, which also impact the human immune system,” Saeed said.
He negated the impression that prices of medicine had been exorbitantly increased and informed that prices of only 450 medicine had been increased by over 15 percent under hardship cases.
The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) on January 11, 2019, with the approval of the federal government, announced up to 15 percent hike in the prices of medicines, apart from life-saving drugs.
Nine per cent hike has been approved in the prices of life-saving drugs, whereas a 15pc hike was approved in the prices of all other medicines.
Last year, a three-judge Supreme Court bench had taken up a suo motu notice about the increase in prices of drugs. In August, Chief Justice of Pakistan had directed Drap to decide within 10 weeks all pending cases of pharmaceutical companies regarding medicine prices.[the_ad id=”31605″]