PESHAWAR, Dec 12: Owing to the sky-rocketing prices of the drugs manufactured by multinational pharmaceutical companies, local manufacturers and substandard drugs have been doing a roaring business due to their low prices, chemists and doctors told Dawn on Thursday.

“We prescribe antibiotic, painkillers and cough syrups manufactured by reputed companies to the patients, but the chemists give them substandard and low-priced drugs in their bid to earn more profit,” said a doctor at the Lady Reading Hospital. According to him, many patients complained of ineffectiveness of certain drugs, which had benefited them on earlier occasions.

The medicines marketed by the MNCs are so expensive that the people find it extremely hard to buy them. The patients as well as the chemists prefer to purchase and sell substandard medicines, obviously due to big profit margin.

The chemists say they sell locally manufactured drugs, because they bring more profit to them. For instance, the MNCs offer from 10 to 15 per cent commission to the chemists on their products and demand payment right at the time of delivery of the drugs. On the contrary, the local companies offer more than 50 per cent commission to the chemists on their products and wait for the payment till their products are sold. Besides, the local companies also offer lucrative bonuses to the chemists, which further entice them to sell the stuff manufactured by the local companies.

As a matter of fact, as the about 365 local drug manufacturers are unable to compete with only 27 MNCs in Pakistan in terms of reliability of their drugs, they resort to manufacturing of low-priced drugs in order to capture the market. All the drugs manufactured by local companies are being used by the people in remote areas. Most of these drugs are being advised to the poor people by quacks, who outnumber the doctors in every locality.

A case in point is of a famous antibiotic, Amoxillin, which has been marketed by more than 50 companies in different trade names with wide gap in their prices. Amoxillin, manufactured by an MNC is sold at Rs60 (injectable), Rs40 syrup and Rs85 (10 capsule), whereas the local ones are being sold at Rs20, Rs10 and Rs30, respectively. Likewise, another time-tested painkiller Diclofenac Sodium, manufactured by an MNC is being sold at Rs30 in injectable form. The price of its local version is only from Rs6 to Rs10.

This is just a tip of the ice-berg. There are 38,000 registered drugs in the country. Put together with the number of smuggled drugs from Iran and India, the number of total drugs exceeds the figure of 50,000. Nevertheless, the WHO recommends some 400 drugs which could treat 90 per cent of the diseases.

“We administer painkiller injection to the patients at the casualty department to relieve their pain, but most of the painkillers do not relieve the pain of the patients and we have to send the attendants of the patients again and again to the market to acquire good quality injection,” said a staff nurse at a local hospital. She said they know the quality of any drugs from its packaging.

Some of these drugs do not have literature, price, manufacturing and expiry dates which further create confusion in the minds of the health professionals.

The matter has also been aggravated by the rampant corruption going on elsewhere in health department. The drug inspectors, who are supposed to put brakes on the sale and marketing of substandard drugs, take bribes from the manufacturers and allow them to play havoc with the health of the people.

The pharmacists appointed at the sole drug testing laboratory (DTL) of the province, required to check the ingredients of all new drugs before they are marketed for human consumption, have also been receiving heavy bribes from the manufacturers. Most of the pharmacists working in health department have been striving hard to get themselves posted at the DTL for monetary gains.