ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has summoned Attorney General Salman Aslam Butt on Friday to explain why a drugs pricing policy has not been formulated yet and why the Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (Drap) is without a chief executive officer.

The directive was issued on Thursday by a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk hearing an application moved by Deputy Attorney General Sajid Ilyas Bhatti on behalf of Drap in a pending suo motu case relating to increase in drug prices.

The subject of licensing, registration, import, export, quality control and fixing prices of different drugs comes under the ambit of Drap supervised by the Ministry of National Health Services Regulations and Coordination with its headquarters in Islamabad. Even meetings with pharmaceutical manufacturers and importers are convened in the federal capital and SROs or notifications issued from here.

Explanation sought from attorney general

Senior lawyer Hafeez Pirzada, representing the Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA), recalled that the issue of drug pricing had been raised before courts in 2008 and the then government had promised to come up with a policy in this regard soon. But nothing has been done since.

Likewise, Drap has been without a CEO since its inception in 2012. A director legal is officiating as acting CEO.

After the devolution of health ministry in June 2011 under the 18th Amendment, the Drug Control Organisation was placed under the administrative control of the cabinet division till the formation of Drap.

Drap was set up through a presidential ordinance in February 2012 to regulate pharmaceutical companies after the Supreme Court took a suo motu notice of deaths of over 100 heart patients either because of spurious drugs or wrong prescription of blood thinning and lipid lowering medicines in January that year. The patients were under treatment at the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) in Lahore.

In October 2011, there were reports that some manufacturers had increased the price of infusion exorbitantly without getting approval from the competent authority because there was no effective regulatory authority in place.

The Drug Pricing Committee held meetings with pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders in June and July 2012 and fixed prices of 92 drugs keeping in view the interest of the poor.

Consequently, the manufacturers and importers filed civil suits in the Sindh High Court, Lahore High Court and court of civil judge in Lahore.

They managed to obtain a restraining order from the LHC after raising the prices of drugs from 46 per cent to 421pc on the pretext that prices of these drugs were decontrolled and not notified in the official gazette, a report earlier submitted by Drap said.

The report accused the manufacturers and importers of dragging the authority into courts which had no jurisdiction to decide such matters under the Drugs Act 1976.

Drap has requested the Supreme Court to issue a uniform judgment by holding that only the Islamabad High Court, and not any other civil or high court, has the jurisdiction to decide cases relating to prices of medicines.

“The pendency of at least 17 litigations by different pharmaceutical companies before different courts may cause conflicting views or judgments and it is in the interest of justice that the question about the jurisdiction be decided by the Supreme Court once and for all,” Drap said.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014