ISLAMABAD: Parliamentary Secretary for National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination Dr. Darshan Wednesday informed the National Assembly that the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has cancelled or suspended the registration of 89 drugs of pharmaceutical companies manufacturing substandard medicines during the last four years.
During question hour in the House, Parliamentary Secretary said that eighteen drugs manufacturing licenses have also been cancelled during this period.
Dr Darshan said that DRAP has serious concerned on the matter of manufacturing substandard medicines and has adopted zero-tolerance policy against the culprits.
He said 10158 new medicines have been registered for local manufacturing and import by Registration Board during last four years.
Dr Darshan said that 5000 applications for registration of various medicines are under process at present.
He said that almost every medicine can be considered as life saving depending upon its intended use. Most developing countries, under WHO guidelines have now moved to the concept of essential medicine, which satisfy the priority health care needs of the population.
Dr Darshan said the sufficient numbers of other brands of these essential medicines are already registered and available to meet the requirement.
While, he said there are additional applicants for the same generic drugs which are already registered by DRAP. Around 900 new applications of the same already registered generic essential drugs are under process.
He said as per routine practice the registration applications are processed on firstin first-out basis and these registration applications would be considered on their turn as no shortage of these has been reported.
However, the essential medicines reported to be in short supply are always considered for registration on priority/ out of queue and provided registration through fast track, he added.
Meanwhile, Parliamentary Secretary for National Food Security and Research Rajab Ali said there is dire need for national policy for land-use planning encompassing prescription for forbidding the use of precious agricultural land for residential or industrial purposes as well as prescribing appropriate cropping pattern suitable for a given agro-climatic zone.
Presently, he said the provincial local governments are responsible for control of such wrong use of land under relevant provisions of land revenue act and local government laws.
At federal level, the matter had been taken up with the Ministry of Housing and Works, CDA and provincial governments, he added.
Rajab Baloch said that according to Ministry of Housing and Works the wrong use of agricultural land is not the domain of their Ministry.
He said only provincial governments of Balochistan and KPK have responded by informing that there is no wrong and excessive use of agriculture land in their respective province whereas government of the Punjab and Sindh have not responded.
