The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) on Thursday announced a strike in Punjab with closure of factories and medicine production due to “unfair treatment” by the Punjab government. Addressing a press conference, PPMA Vice Chairman Nasir Qureshi said the unfair behavior of the government was affecting the pharmaceutical industry all over the country. He said the mishandling of Tyno syrup incident by the Punjab government had forced them to close down their units all over Punjab and stop production of medicines.
“We deeply regret the loss of lives in the incident but it would be unfair and unjust to blame the pharmaceutical company,” he added.
He said according to the forensic report by the central drug laboratory, Tyno Syrup was not the cause of deaths, adding that the deceased were already drug addicts. He stressed that the Punjab government had deliberately not made the results of the forensic report public to hide its own failure in handling the situation. Qureshi said that goodwill was the most valuable asset of any medical company and a single false news item would affect the entire pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan.
He also requested the media to avoid reporting without knowing complete facts and stressed the need of getting information from technical people instead of non-technical and political figures who don’t have complete knowledge of technical matters.
He stressed the need to improve the working of drug regulatory inspectors and added that the market was full of unregistered medicine.
“Many pharmaceutical manufacturers have closed down their business and many more are considering closing down which would render about 4.5 million people jobless and drug manufacturing sector would be eliminated from Pakistan which should be a point of worry for the country’s policy makers,” he added.
