By Asma Kundi
ISLAMABAD: The pharmaceutical industry has warned the federal government to increase the prices of medicines as they have become entirely unsustainable in manufacturing medicines and ensuring their availability beyond the next seven days.
Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) has written a letter to the federal government and DRAP to increase medicine prices as the local pharmaceutical industry is heavily dependent on imported raw materials to ensure the uninterrupted availability of medicines in the country.
Minister refused to increase medicine prices
Federal Minister for Health on Tuesday refused to increase the prices of medicines, saying, “We will not compromise on medicine prices and are taking every possible step to ensure the availability of medicine in the market. The government is aware of the difficulties people are already facing due to inflation in Pakistan.”
He added that the health ministry is working hard to give relief to people through the uninterrupted availability of medicine at affordable prices. In this regard, an import meeting of the health ministry and PPMA will be held in Karachi on Thursday.
PPMA believes that, unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry suffered a devastating blow as prices of active pharmaceutical Ingredients, such as raw materials, have increased exponentially in the international market since the COVID-19 Corona Virus pandemic outbreak. Simultaneously, production factors like freight charges, the cost of fuel, electricity, and packing material witnessed an unprecedented increase during the same period. It is worth noting that the Pakistani Rupee has devalued by more than 67 percent against the US Dollar since July 2020.
The letter said, “DRAP and the Federal Government have failed to take any steps whatsoever to protect the public en masse and remedy the prevailing situation, which has resulted in the collapse of the pharmaceutical industry as it is not able to ensure further production of safe, efficacious, and qualitative therapeutic goods with rational use at reasonable prices to the general public.”
