ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association (PPMA) held a press briefing to demand continuity of the system of linking medicine prices with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the bare minimum requirement for the drug industry for availability of quality medicines at the most affordable prices.
PPMA Chairman of Tauqeerul Haq, while speaking at a press briefing, said that linkage of medicine prices with CPI under the new drug pricing regime should continue for uninterrupted production by Pakistan’s pharmaceutical industry.
He said that medicine prices should be periodically reviewed in view of the inflation, as up to 95pc raw material used in drug manufacturing was imported.
He said that in the past, a number of essential drugs had vanished from the market as their production had become infeasible for the medicine industry in absence of the system of periodic review of the prices.
The PPMA chairman said that patients were left with no option other than using smuggled medicines of questionable quality when the local industry were not able to produce essential drugs due to sheer economic reasons.
He said the periodic review of the drug prices would ensure that drug industry would play a vital role in economic progress of the country by generating sizable employment opportunities for fresh university graduates and labourers alike.
