April 22, 2002	Monday	Safar 8, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, April 21: If the government allows pharmaceutical companies to sell medicines at any price they like, and that tariff on the import of pharmaceutical raw material could be reduced from 10 to 5 per cent, than the companies will pay 15 per cent General Sales Tax.

This was agreed in a government and pharmaceutical industry meeting held at the ministry of industries with secretary industries on Saturday.

A law to this effect will be presented in the Cabinet meeting to be held on Wednesday. After the approval of the law, companies will fix the prices of medicines themselves.

The chairman PPMA and chairman Pharma Bureau said that the price of most of the medicines was very low so they cannot do proper marketing, and these days marketing needed huge expenses, so medicine should be expensive. Certainly there is a lot of unethical practices on the part of doctors as they ask pharmaceutical companies for favours in the form of foreign trips, cars, cash, and households needs etc.

The pharmaceutical market is not a consumer-oriented market as the customer and consumer are two different persons. The customer is doctor (who need his share from the profit of medicine) and consumer is the patient.

In 1993 the government had announced partial deregulation of prices of medicines and most of the companies increased the prices of their products from 200 per cent to 1000 per cent, then the government had regulated the prices of all the medicines.

All over the world the prices of medicines are given by the regulatory authorities one way or another, but companies and their associations manipulate the facts in a way to show that the prices of medicines are deregulated in all other countries.

The Foundation for the Preferment of Pharmaceutical Sciences would like to quote an example of Canada and USA: On October 24, 2001, Tommy Thompson, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Helge Welmeir, President of the Bayer Corporation, announced the federal purchase of Ciprofloxacin tablets at half price.

The US government’s action was sparked by the Canadian health ministry’s decision to commission a local drug company to make Ciprofloxacin, violating Bayer’s patent rights. Bayer agreed to supply the drug at half price in Canada.

The price of Ciprofloxacin was $0.95 per tablet of 500mg on October 21, 2001 in Canada, which was cut into half after the agreement and came down to $0.47. Whereas the price of Ciprofloxacin of Bayer remained the same in Pakistan i.e. $0.93 per tablet of 500mg. The price in Pakistan is still the same as of last year. If Bayer has reduced the price of its product in the US and Canada than way not in Pakistan.

According to the press release of the Foundation, the example of Ciprofloxacin shows that the prices of drugs are also controlled in the US and Canada and all over the world. Thus there should be strong drug price regulatory authority and patients cannot pay 15 per cent GST. Why is the government not taking tax from the rich pharmaceutical companies.