ISLAMABAD: Just a day before the end of its three-year tenure on July 28, the Drug Registration Board has convened a meeting to discuss the registration of medicines and cases pending against companies whose medicines were found substandard.

An official in the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) said though there was no legal bar on holding such a meeting, the board should not take any decision on such sensitive cases just a day before the expiry of its tenure.

However, NHS Secretary Ayub Sheikh said all members of the board were credible and their decisions would be beyond any doubt.

The CEO of the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap), Dr Mohammad Aslam, also claimed that there was nothing wrong in holding the meeting.

Board will meet on 28th, a day before expiry of its tenure, to discuss cases against firms selling substandard medicines

It may be mentioned that the registration board holds meetings to register new drugs. Moreover, it also takes up complaints about substandard drugs such as the January 2012 case at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) hospital in Lahore in which 100 people died after taking a fake medicine.

An official of the Ministry of NHS requesting anonymity confirmed that the registration board had convened its meeting on July 28.

Usually, the board holds two-day meetings but this time according to documents available with Dawn the board will meet only for one day. This has created doubts that the meeting has been called to give benefit to some companies.

“Morally, it is not correct to decide about the registration of medicines just a day before expiry of the board’s tenure. Though the decisions would not be illegal, they would become controversial,” he said.

The Drap CEO said the tenure of the board would expire on July 29 but there was no legal issue in holding the meeting on July 28.

“We have 15 members in the board and the tenure of only six expert members will expire on July 29. In fact, we want to clear the pending cases as early as possible. We have cleared 600 pending cases of biological drugs and want to clear other cases as soon as possible,” he said.

“The list of pending cases will be totally cleared by the end of the year and during the next year we will be in a position to consider fresh applications,” he said.

The NHS secretary told Dawn that there was a backlog of 3,700 registration cases.

“I directed the board to hold its meetings twice a month and clear the cases. As a result, the backlog of 3,700 was cleared and the companies were directed to complete the documents of pending files and apply again. This led to the filing of 2,200 new applications,” he said.

“The next meeting of the board will be held on August 15 and by that time we will get an approval from the prime minister to constitute a new registration board. Because of the speedy process, from now onward there will be no backlog of drug registration cases,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2016