Cough syrups, ORS prices up by 90-170 per cent

KARACHI: The lax regulation of pharmaceutical industry continues haunting consumers as the rates of two cough syrups and one ORS brand have been raised by 90-170 percent apparently without approval by the Drug Regulatory Agency.

Two popular cough syrups that were short in the market reappeared in medical stores at highly inflated rates. The maximum retail price of one syrup before the increase was Rs30 per 100ml bottle that has now been increased to Rs59 while the price of the other syrup has been raise from Rs35 to Rs65 per bottle. The rate of branded ORS has also been increased from Rs10 per packet to Rs27 per packet.

It may be mentioned that both the companies that have almost doubled their drug rates are national companies. This correspondent visited various drugstores in the City which confirmed the increase in prices of the abovementioned medicines. The increase in prices of the medicines is most likely to hit the poor as they were extensively used to treat infections due to change in weather.

These drugs are not included in the list of 105 drugs whose prices were increased by the DRA on April 02, 2012, under SRO 323 (I) 2012, dated March 30, 2012.

According to sources in the DRA, the plea taken by the companies is that the names of the three drugs are not among the list of 821 drugs whose prices were regulated by the DRA under SRO 471/ (1)/93, issued on June 12, 1993. Some companies infer from that SRO that all other approved drugs, not included in the list, come under the deregulated drugs and they can increase the prices without the DRA’s approval.

Ex-chairman of Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association Amjad Jawa expressed surprise at the increased rates, saying how the rates of the drugs were increased without approval of the DRA as no meeting of the agency had taken place for increase in rates after the April 2 notification. He said if the increase went unaccounted, it would open a Pandora’s Box and every manufacturer would start increasing the rate of the drugs at will. In fact, he added, the multinational pharmaceuticals increased rates of their nutritional products at will as there was no government check on the rates of the nutritional products.

Jawa said the price increase announced on April 2, 2012 was made for specific company product. He said it would have been more prudent had the increase in Acetly salicalic acid (Asprin) been allowed to all the manufacturers instead of restricting it to one. He said the raw material of the analgesic drugs was manufactured locally and increase in input costs had affected all the companies equally. Dr M J Chaudhry, another former chairman of the PPMA, said when the drug rates were increased in 2001, the raise on controlled drug was allowed at one percent and on deregulated drugs at 1.5 percent. The precedent, he added, showed that the permission of the DRA was a must to increase the rates of even deregulated drugs.

Former Vice-Chairman PPMA Shahzeb Hasan deplored that the industry had been plagued with scandals, defiance and apathy of the regulators. He said hundreds of millions of rupees of the industry were stuck in new plants which were awaiting formal approval of the DRA to start manufacturing because no board meeting of registration and licensing board had been held in more than a year. He said the newly-established factories had hired staff to get approval after inspection of their manufacturing and quality control facilities before approval was granted.