DRAP agrees to raise price of paracetamol to end shortage

muhammadhafeezmalik · Feb 3, 2022

DRAP agrees to raise price of paracetamol to end shortage

Various brands of paracetamol vanished from the pharmacies amid the 5th wave of COVID-19 and are being sold at exorbitant rates

Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) has agreed to enhance the maximum retail price (MRP) of Paracetamol as ‘hardship case’ after different drug manufacturers warned that they would be unable to manufacture the medicine on the existing price due to growing cost of raw material from China, officials and industry officials said on Wednesday.

“The Drug Pricing Committee (DPC) of DRAP has recommended some relief to Paracetamol manufacturers as prices of its Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) has increased manifolds in the international market”, an official of the DRAP told The News on condition of anonymity.

The official, however, claimed that the summary to increase the price of over-the-counter medicine, commonly used to treat pain and reduce high fever, would only be increased after federal cabinet’s approval.

Various brands of paracetamol vanished from the pharmacies amid 5th wave of COVID-19 and are being sold on exorbitant rates as drug manufacturers claimed that the prices of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) of the common medicine, which is imported from China increased manifolds and now it was impossible for them to manufacture the medicine on MRP set by the DRAP.

“Prices of API for the manufacturing Paracetamol has increased from Rs600 to Rs2600 per kg. Despite increase in API prices, DRAP is insisting that drug manufacturers should sell the medicine at Rs1.90 per tablet while production cost has increased to Rs2.30 per tablet”, Qazi Muhammad Mansoor Dilawar, Chairman of the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) told The News.

The PPMA chairman said they had demanded the DRAP to increase the MRP of Paracetamol to Rs3.50 per tablet but the DRAP authorities only agreed to increase it upto Rs2.67 per tablet and added that in order to ensure the availability of the medicine, drug manufacturers had agreed to accept the MRP offered by the regulatory authority.

“We have learnt that DRAP would forward the summary to the federal cabinet for approval for the increase in the price of medicine”, Qazi Muhammad Mansoor Dilawar added. Meanwhile, the PPMA chairman further said they were under immense pressure from their members to halt production of medicines and close down their factories over imposition of 17% sales tax on the import of medicines’ raw material, saying government was imposing the sales tax on the pressure from International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would result in enhancing prices of medicines in Pakistan.

“Earlier government agreed to refund the 17 percent sales tax to the drug manufacturing companies on the purchase of raw material and we agreed to it. Now the government says it would refund the sales tax on the consumption of sales tax, which is impossible and not acceptable to drug manufacturers”, Qazi Muhammad Mansoor said and warned that imposition of sales tax on raw material would ultimately by be passed on the end user.

Urging the government to honour its commitments with the pharmaceutical industry, the PPMA chairman said imposition of sales tax on import of raw material would not only increase the prices of medicines in Pakistan but it would also result in suspending production of several medicines locally, which would also create shortage of important medicines in Pakistan.

“This decision would also hurt government’s desire to increase the exports of medicines”, he said and warned that if their demand was not met by the government, they could go on strike and halt the drug manufacturing as this decision would make doing business impossible for them in the country.