NHS step on drugs prices praised

LAHORE:Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) appreciates Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) for stopping Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) from registering drugs without fixing price.

The step has been taken in the light of AGP’s special audit report of DRAP, which showed so many irregularities in the price fixing by DRAP.

PMA (Centre) Secretary General Dr SM Qaisar Sajjad said that the report revealed DRAP had been registering medicines without fixation of their prices due to which the drugs were sold at very high rates under Health and Over the Counter (HOTC) products. Despite the fact that a number of products fall in the category of drugs they were sold as vitamins and nutrition due to which their prices were not fixed.

After the AGP’s report this has been proved that DRAP manipulated in giving undue incentive to the HOTC manufacturers which lead to more investment in non-essential medicine and thus production of essential medicine was discouraged. This is the reason that essential drugs are getting short in the market and people get their medicine after visiting four to five medical stores.

PMA suggests the government to make strict policy for continuous monitoring of DRAP because pricing of medicine is a serious issue. The government should make sure the easily availability of drugs at affordable prices, it further suggests.