Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) Vice Chairman Tariq Ikram resigned from his post and renounced his PPMA membership over the faulty medicines debacle, because he has been “restrained from disclosing some facts about the pharmaceutical industry.”
Ikram, who was also the acting chairman of the association, resigned during a press conference at the Avari Towers on Thursday.
Later, PPMA spokesman Dr Qaiser Waheed said Ikram wanted to politicise the matter and create differences within the provinces, which is why “I personally asked the vice chairman not to disclose the facts.”
The press conference was also attended by representatives of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry, the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry, the Korangi Association of Trade & Industry, and the Sindh Industrial Trading Estates.
PPMA office-bearers confirmed that they are going to raise prices of almost all kinds of drugs by 20 to 100 percent.
They said they have obtained the permission of the federal government to do so, despite the fact that all federal ministries have been devolved to the provinces under the 18th constitutional amendment.
Moreover, instead of taking responsibility for faulty medicine production, PPMA representatives said the government must constitute a high-level inquiry committee, comprising representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other reputable international institutions, to ascertain the actual reasons behind the deaths.
Waheed termed the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) incident, in which over 200 cardiac patients were killed, an accident.
He said he was surprised that a case under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) was lodged against medicine factory owners for this accident when no such action is taken when a railway accident occurs.
However, when asked under which sections of the PPC a case could be registered against factory owners found involved in producing faulty medicines, he was unable to respond.
He only said, “Look, I am addressing this press conference right now, and if an employee of my factory produces faulty medicines that kill someone, would a case be lodged against me?”
Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry is the fifth largest in the world, and it produces 60 percent of the total drug requirements of the country, whereas it exports drugs worth Rs 18 billion to 60 countries, with an annual growth rate of around 30 percent.
On the subject of raising drug prices, Waheed was asked who has the authority over price regulation after federal ministries, including the Health Ministry, were dissolved under the 18th amendment.
He said Cabinet Division Secretary Nargis Sethi has issued the approval under Section 12 of the Drugs Act-1976, which, he claimed, despite the 18th amendment, is still intact.
Instead of making the PPMA’s position clear over the faulty medicines debacle, Waheed went on to ask why patients at PIC are still dying, even when all the faulty medicines have been confiscated.
He also said, “Go through the official record of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases where 24 patients die every day. But do they die of faulty medicines? There are other reasons for patients’ deaths, which also need to be ascertained.”
