Chemists’ body to write letter to DRAP over profit issue

Rawalpindi:Pakistan Chemist and Druggist Association (PCDA) has decided to write a protest letter to Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) against the conspiracy to reduce the chemists’ margin on Panadol pills, says a press release.

The recent DRAP notification should be withdrawn immediately. Demanding to take notice of the deteriorating and alarming situation and to take legal action against all those responsible for this decision, the government should fix the profit margin of chemists at 25 per cent in view of rising inflation. No medicine will be sold on less than 15 per cent profit margin. In the law, the DRAP authorities have the power to control the price of medicines. All attempts to end the pharma trade by giving instructions to the multinational companies to fix the price will be foiled.

An emergency meeting was presided by the PCDA (Punjab) Chairman and Central Liaison Office Pakistan Zahid Bakhtawari. The meeting was attended by Arshad Awan, Basit Abbasi, Tariq Mehmood, Zakaria Qureshi, Chaudhry Imran, Rashid Noor, Waris Khattak, Tariq Sultan, Kashif Riaz Sheikh, Muhammad Wamiq and all district presidents of PCDA (Punjab). In his address to the meeting, Zahid Bakhtawari said that the Drug Regulatory Authority and the government have fallen prey to the blackmailing of multinational pharmaceutical companies and have put chemists across the country in trouble, in the current era of inflation.

The govt should have fixed the profit margin of chemists on medicines at 25 per cent and not by surrendering to the artificial shortage created by multinational pharmaceuticals. DRAP should have issued a notification to abolish the chemist margin set on the pill. DRAP should have cancelled the manufacturing licence of these companies in Pakistan and given ince­ntives to the domestic pha­rma industry to manu­facture medicines. Zahid Bakh­tawari further said that only DRAP has the authority to fix the price of medicines and control all the conspiracies to end the pharma trade issues.