KARACHI: Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association (PPMA) rejected newly promulgated the Punjab Drugs Amendment Ordinance 2015 assuring the government its full support to launch crackdown against spurious drugs that should be done within given countrywide framework under Drug Act 1976.
Addressing a news conference, the Central Chairman of PPMA Saeed Allahwala, accompanied by members of central executive committee of representative body of drug manufacturers, called upon the government to immediately withdraw the ordinance promulgated as it virtually diminished the long existing distinction in the country between licensed manufacturers of drugs and those producing their counterfeits.
The PPMA chief said that the recently promulgated ordinance in Punjab created a situation of serious commotion and uncertainty among licensed manufacturers of medicines as under this new law they were being dealt in the same harsh manner similar to actions against unscrupulous elements indulged in production of spurious drugs in the country.
He said the new provincial law prepared in haste had meted out sheer unfair treatment to a national level industry comprising 600 companies who had been ably fulfilling up to 90 per cent requirement of medicines in the country while owing to its operations, Pakistan continued to have a functional health system.
He said that services of this pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan had been acknowledged in various other countries while the new ordinance had not only created serious suspicions among consumers of the industry within the country but also had sent a strong negative impression in export markets for Pakistani medicines.
He said the massive advertising campaign launched last some month with enactment of this new drug law had sent the utterly wrong message in medicines markets worldwide that up to 45 per cent drugs manufactured in Pakistan were spurious.
