PPMA APPEALS TO REVIEW LICENSE CANCELLATION DECISION

PAKISTAN Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) on Monday appealed to the federal government to review its decision of cancellation of licenses of 14 pharmaceutical companies.

Addressing a press conference here, Chaudhry Ansar Farooq, Malik Arshad and Arshad Mehmood Awan from PPMA asked the government to resolve this matter in accordance with the Drugs Act.

They said that the Punjab government had written a letter to the concerned federal ministry and suggested to take action against those 14 pharmaceutical companies whose medicines were declared sub-standard.

However, they said, that the decision should be taken in accordance with the national and international regulations. He expressed the hope that the PPMA delegations who were holding meetings with the federal government will resolve this matter.

Chaudhry Ansar Farooq said that the PPMA was ready to deal with these cases in accordance with the drugs act. He expressed the hope that the government will protect the rights of genuine manufacturers. He said that local pharmaceutical industry didn’t raise drugs prices since 2001 despite factor of rising inflation rate. He added that the local manufacturers were producing drugs on affordable rates in order to give relief to the people.

He said that there was policy of 8% capping on drug price increases in hardship cases and the industry couldn’t raise the prices of such medicines.

Chaudhry Ansar Farooq said that multi-national companies had stopped supplies of anti-TB, infections control and other medicines but the local industry had ensured smooth supply of these medicines in the market. He said that several multi-national pharmaceutical companies moved the courts in support of their stance of increasing drugs prices. However the PPMA didn’t move the court for this purpose.

He said that the PPMA was against spurious drugs and wanted to take stern action against this illegal business. He said that many people were running this illegal business and producing drugs of established brands on local level. He said that local pharma industry was producing the drugs following the national and international SOPs. He added there were issues of longtime storage of medicines and made it clear that the local industry has nothing to do with this matter as every company clearly mentions this precaution on every batch of drugs.

He said that local pharmaceutical industry was playing a vital role in the development of a health society and economy of the country.

He sought the support of the authorities concerned to ensure that the pharmaceutical industry was capable of producing safe, effective and affordable medicines.