It is a sad reality that the government has yet to formulate the new drug pricing policy despite the fact that the devolution of Health Ministry has rendered the drug companies unbridled and they are free to raise the prices whenever they want. At present they are also freely introducing therapeutic equivalent drugs on higher prices.
The term ‘therapeutic equivalent’ means a drug that has essentially the same effect in the treatment of a disease or condition as other drugs.
Since it is difficult to raise the prices of medicines legally, so taking the advantage of the absence of new drug pricing policy, the drug companies create the shortage of a particular drug, then after some time, they introduce and register a therapeutic equivalent medicine of the same drug and hence they make huge profits by while using a different name of the same medicine.
A few days before its devolution, the ministry had proudly announced that the country would soon have a new drug pricing policy and that it would take into account the concerns of both the consumers and the manufacturers.
But after the devolution, the policy, which was on the anvil simply disappeared and its fate hangs in the balance like that of the proposed Drugs Registration Authority (DRA) and Drug Control Organisation.
A health official, seeking anonymity, told Pakistan Today that the devolution process instead of proving beneficial for the public only created a mess in the health sector and since last June, the health devolution managers had been unsuccessful in establishing a drug regulatory authority.
“Drug companies are indeed taking advantage of the apathy of health department managers and they do create a shortage of drugs to profit from their therapeutic equivalents and hence the consumers have to suffer”, he added.
He cited the example of a drug called ‘thydrochlothiazite’, which is used to keep the blood pressure in control. Earlier, he said, two tablets of the drug were available for just one rupee.
“Then suddenly the medicine just disappeared from the market. After a short interval of time, however, a new medicine named ‘Xevordiu’ was introduced, which used the same contents and composition but it was more expensive than the earlier version”, he added.
Taking to Pakistan Today, Nadeem Iqbal, the general secretary of Pakistan Pharmacist’s Association, said that in Pakistan there was no law to stop the doctors from prescribing the medicines by brands, whereas internationally it was illegal. “In the rest of the world, a physician prescribes simply the generic name of a drug and it is up to consumer to buy any brand, he or she can afford,” he observed.
He said the government should pay attention towards this issue since it involved the lives of thousands of patients.
He feared that if the government failed to implement the pricing policy any sooner, the poor patients might start dying because of their financial constraints.
Dr Sania Nishtar, the head of Heartfile, a health sector thin tank, said the government should at first seek out as to who would deal with the pricing and registration of the drugs under the 18th Amendments.
She said the announcement of new drug pricing policy before the devolution was very strange because then even the ministry was also not sure as to who would have the mandate to implement the policy after the transfer of powers to the provinces.
She was of the view that lack of clarity about the establishment of Drug Regularity Authority and Pricing Policy had also led to drug shortages, discouragement to the investors, and increase in drug prices.
“The government should establish the Drug Regularity Authority at federal level soon in order to streamline the whole process,” she suggested. Despite repeated efforts by this scribe, no official concerned was available to comment on the issue.
