More than 100 life-saving medicines are currently unavailable in Pakistan, making it difficult for patients to access essential treatment for cancer, hypertension and diabetes.
Drug manufacturers and suppliers said several medicines have gone out of production one by one over the past two years because rising costs have made retail prices unviable.
They said they have repeatedly asked the government to revise prices upward so production and supply can resume, but the requests have not yet been approved.
Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Association former chairman Tauqeer Ul Haq said hardship cases under the Drug Pricing Policy 2018 should be decided within 60 to 90 days, but many applications for price increases have remained pending for more than two years.
He said the number of unavailable medicines is close to 105, but the actual number of hardship cases is higher because manufacturers have stopped filing new requests after earlier applications were left pending.
Haq said manufacturers are not seeking extra profit but are asking for revised prices for medicines that have become financially unviable to produce at current rates.
He warned that patients are being put at risk and may be forced to buy counterfeit or smuggled medicines at higher prices in the absence of original low-cost medicines.
He said the government still controls the prices of life-saving drugs, which make up around 40 percent of all medicines sold in Pakistan.
PPMA senior vice chairman Kamran Nasir said DRAP and the Drug Pricing Committee had recommended new prices for hardship cases and sent the summary to the federal cabinet for approval.
He said the cabinet has not considered the summary despite repeated submissions over the past two years.
Nasir said Pakistan is the only country where the regulator reviews hardship cases, but the final approval rests with the cabinet.
He said the system makes little sense because DRAP has the technical expertise, while the cabinet does not have the time or specialist knowledge to review each medicine price issue.
According to the PPMA, drug manufacturers recently met Federal Health Minister Mustafa Kamal, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Adviser to the Prime Minister Haroon Akhtar, and they agreed to raise the issue with the prime minister.
Nasir said DRAP does not accept manufacturers’ requests blindly and checks medicine prices in neighbouring countries such as India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka before recommending new rates.
He said manufacturers need a reasonable profit margin to keep plants running, pay staff, supply medicines and invest in new production lines.
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