LAHORE: A crackdown is going to be launched against herbal companies that are not ready to register their products after the expiry of date of application for registration till Oct 1.

This was stated by Pharmaceutical Legal Expert for Drug Regulations of the Ministry of Health Noor Muhammad Mahar.

He said after the formation of the Health Bill for Alternative Medicines 2012 on which implementation was started in May 2014, as many as 2,400 herbal companies had applied for their registration and the figure was likely to touch 8,000.

However, he said, two big companies of herbal products were reluctant to register their products.

He said the federal and provincial drug inspectors would crack down on medical stores to seize products of unregistered companies and file cases for prosecution in drug courts. Under the Act, he said, a punishment of imprisonment from seven to 10 years besides fine would be awarded to violators.

It is learnt that the companies are minting money by selling their products without registration and they were opposing the deadline of 60 days which was later extended till Oct 1 for registration. Many such companies have their head offices in Dubai to avert registration. The registration fee for a company is Rs.10,000 while for a medicine, the fee is fixed at Rs250-2,000.

More than 30,000 herbal drugs and cosmetic production companies are said to be operating in the country without registration and certification from the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP). It was suggested by some relevant circles of pharmacy that the government should set up herbal research institution to develop the industry in the country as Pakistan’s herbal exports have a huge potential to capture international market.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2014