ISLAMABAD: While the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) and its ancillary department, the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap), were already under pressure after recent arrest of nine people over illegal increases in prices, a petition has been filed with the Lahore High Court, seeking directions to Drap to publish the National Formulary of Pakistan (NFP) in order to check illegal ways of increasing prices.

However, Drap Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Mohammad Aslam said there was no need to publish the NFP in the Gazette of Pakistan as the data had already been uploaded on the website of the authority from where the citizens can verify the prices.

On November 22, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested eight people, including a former secretary and member of the drug pricing committee of the federal health ministry, in a Rs1 billion drug corruption case. They were accused of making wrongful increases in the prices of medicines in 2012 and 2013. Later, an additional secretary was also put behind bars.

Moreover, in March this year, NAB also took into custody representatives of two companies over the same charges and recovered over Rs380 million from them.

The petition filed with the LHC, Lahore, stated that under the Drugs Act 1976 it was mandatory to publish the NFP regularly. It said since 1981 the new NFP had not been published.

Advocate Ijaz Mahmood Chaudhry, who filed the petition, told Dawn that as new medicines were registered and the prices changed from time to time, the updated NFP should be published in the Gazette of Pakistan.

“Formulas and prices are also included in the NFP and in case of a change in the prices it has to be mentioned in the NFP. The NFP remains available with medical stores, doctors and other stakeholders so it becomes impossible for anyone to increase the prices,” he said.

He added that notices had been issued to the ministry, Drap and other stakeholders with directions to submit comments to the court within 15 days.

When contacted, petitioner Mohammad Usman said the prices of medicines were increased overnight and no one accepted the responsibility.

Moreover, doctors are also facing difficulties because of the unavailability of the NFP. In the US, Paracetamol is sold as Tylenol whereas in Pakistan it is available with the names of Calpol and Panadol. If a doctor comes from the US and starts practicing here, he should have the NFP otherwise he will be prescribing drugs that are not available in the local market, he maintained.

He said Drap had decided to de-register over 50 medicines based on the criterion that they were not available in the US and some other countries. “We have requested the court to stop the process as long as the NFP is not published because it provides alternatives to the medicines,” he said.

Dr Aslam told Dawn that some people still lived in the 60s and 70s and wanted the publication of the NFP.

“Everything is available on the website of Drap. Those who want to confirm the prices, formulas and remove other confusion should visit the website. There is no need to publish the NFP,” he said.

In reply to a question about de-registration of medicines, Dr Aslam said the European Drug Authority recently banned 620 Indian medicines after declaring their clinical trials fake or unauthentic.

A clinical trial shows how effective a medicine is, what are its side effects and what can be its shelf life.

“Now we have also decided to ensure that only medicines having credible clinical trials are sold in the market. For that, 14 countries have been declared as a benchmark and if a medicine is sold there we will also allow its sale in Pakistan,” he said.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2016