Pharmacists, drug lawyers rally against DRAP

LAHORE: Scores of pharmacists and lawyers gathered under the banner of Pakistan Young Pharmacist Association and Pakistan Drug Lawyers Forum in front of Lahore Press Club on Thursday in a protest against the illegal medicine mafia and Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan.

Addressing the protest demonstration, Noor Mahar, PDLF president, said that DRAP was going to explode medicine price bomb on 220 million Pakistanis on February 27, 2018. He said that on January 19, 2018, medicine price increase was notified by DRAP and Ministry of National Health Services.

When State Bank of Pakistan had issued consumer price index of October 2017, it was seen that 15.68 percent medicine prices were increased only in one month of October 2017, he said, adding since November 2013, 250 percent medicine prices havd been increased in Pakistan. The PDLF president said Saira Afzal Tarar and DRAP CEO Akhtar Hussian always said in Supreme Court of Pakistan and Parliament that medicine prices had been frozen for years.

According to an FIA letter, he said, the price of a stent imported from Germany was 20 Euro. He said Aslam Afghani, former CEO of DRAP, also registered stents of $ 3-4 per stent from China and these stents were being sold at Rs 150,000 to Rs 250,000 per stent.

As per section 7(8) of Drugs Act 1976, single ingredient medicines shall be registered generally by their generic names, he said. He alleged the DRAP was violating the mandatory provisions of the law. He said if single ingredient medicines were registered by their generic names, medicines' prices would have to be reduced five times.

Haroon Yousaf, PYPA president, said that Akhtar Hussain was appointed as the DRAP CEO February 2, 2018 while NAB had declared him dead in two corruption references of NAB in 2001 and 2004. He alleged that Akhtar Hussain had made assets beyond his means.

Haroon said that the honest officers in DRAP were working to improve the quality of medicines and availability of economical medicines for poor patients but they were always dealt with contempt by the high-ups of DRAP. An official, Dr Obaid Ali, made cases on poisonous injections of two multinational companies and import of contaminated baby milk but the authorities allegedly blocked the case, he added.

Sehar Bashir, an executive member of PYPA, said that when Dr Obaid Ali wrote about the illegal medicines and price mafia to Supreme Court of Pakistan, his wife Roohi Obaid was kicked out of her job on February 14, 2018.

The protesters requested the chief justice of Pakistan, the chief of army staff, the NAB chairman, parliamentarians and the authorities of all law enforcement agencies to immediately reduce the medicine prices and force DRAP to work for the improvement of quality of medicines; hold accountable the minister concerned and the DRAP CEO, and reinstate Roohi Bano Obaid in her job.