PESHAWAR: Many manufacturers and importers of food supplements and nutritional products (nutraceuticals) continue to defy the directives issued by Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan to clearly mention that their products are not meant for treatment of any disease.

As a result, people are using those food supplements as pharmaceutical medicines, according to pharmacists.

The DRAP had instructed the manufacturers and importers in July 2020 to clearly mention on the label that food and nutritional supplements were not meant for treatment of any disease but with few exceptions there is no mention on labels and the patients get them over-the-counter for treatment, according to sources.

On November 12, 2012 when the DRAP Act was promulgated amending the Drug Act 1976, these items were almost nil except a few syrups. During last nine years, the leading multinational companies have started producing the nutraceuticals because these are not put to stringent mechanism of pricing and registration, the way pharmaceutical curative drugs undergo and tested in the public sector Drug Testing Labs working in every province, according to pharmacists.

Pharmacists say people use these items as medicines

On the contrary, there is no testing laboratory to identify presence of the claimed nutrients in these items because the drug analysts of government’s laboratories don’t have the mandate for these nutraceuticals except to check if these may contain allopathic ingredients, which can be identified being pharmaceutical active ingredient.

“It amounts to intellectual corruption, where certain items are claimed as regulated but are scot-free in pricing and analysis. DRAP is required to regulate these preparations,” said the pharmacists.

They said that local markets were replete with food supplements and multivitamins manufactured by local and multinational companies with different prices for the same ingredients.

The consumers only pay for these items unaware of the side effects and incompatibility of these with other drugs concomitantly used for treatment of a disease.

The pharmacists said that maximum retail price (MRP) was discretion of the importers and manufacturers and those items were available in the markets at lower prices than the ones mentioned on the labels because of the huge profit margin.

It is not the case with regard to pharmaceutical drugs where price on the label is charged.

They said that the government left it on the discretion of manufacturers and importers of nutraceuticals and food supplements to sell those items at price tag of their choice.

The local health officials said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Care Commission banned prescription of food supplements and multivitamins by doctors last year. “Price control and policy matters are the domain of DRAP, the provinces only implements the directives issued to them from Islamabad It is a big problem and needs to be addressed,” they added.

These are higher than the cost of the allopathic medicines duly registered and granted price through strict mechanism by DRAP.

The officials say that there is no modus operandi to fix prices of these alternative medicines containing nutrients. They say that the ministry of commerce should regulate these items. Such items should be advised to people by the nutritionists and not by those, who are barred by the government from prescribe these supplements.

The nutraceuticals and over-the-counter products are not regulated by DRAP through Drug Pricing Committee, the Policy Board and finally by the federal cabinet prior to the award of MRP, therefore their rates are manifold higher than the pharmaceutical drugs, which are duly registered after a lot of evaluation as per Drug Pricing Policy, 2018.

DRAP officials didn’t respond to telephone calls made by this correspondent to seek their version for the report.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2021