Generic rights

The pharmaceutical sector consisting of 750 manufacturing units employing thousands is being slowly suffocated by mafias through regulation. The KP Pharmaceutical Association requests the help of the government in ending monopolies and streamlining regulations in the pharma sector.

First, it requests the government to allow the pharma sector to avail the SBP’s six percent fixed interest loans of upto Rs2 million per company for Bio-equilency (BE) studies. Each study will allow the company to export generic medicines at high prices earning millions in export revenue. The companies will use the export profits to conduct more studies and increase exports over the years. Second, it requests an end to the monopoly of a handful of companies that are given a higher sale price for the same products and who are allowed to manufacture products that are banned for everyone else. These mafias are restricting the sale of 730 companies, while the companies creating the monopoly have captured 90 percent of the market with their higher priced products, costing more for citizens. If the above two conditions are materialized quickly then Pakistan’s pharmaceutical sector can increase exports by $3 billion every year. We already manufacture export quality products but lack the funds to fulfill the regulatory and testing requirements for exporting generic medicine.

Engr Zahid Arif

Peshawar