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Essential drugs have vanished from the medicine markets in Pakistan as the pharmaceutical sector has demanded an increase in the prices following a hike in manufacturing costs owing to an increase in the rate of dollar, fuel prices, and other factors.
As per a list of medicines available with The News and a survey of several pharmacies in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad revealed that several important medicines for the treatment of TB, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, depression, cardiovascular disease and others were not available as pharmaceutical companies were not manufacturing them due to high cost of production.
According to Pakistan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (PPMA) Chairman Mansoor Dilawar inflation has hit globally after the pandemic and led to a hike in prices of raw materials, now it has become unbearable for the pharma industry to manufacture medicines.
Chairman PPMA said that several medicines were not available in the local market, as their cost of production had increased to the extent where it was not viable for manufacturers to produce the drugs and sell them at a price below the cost of production.
“Rupee’s devaluation is the biggest factor behind increasing the cost of production of many essential medicines, the cost of raw material is increasing while utilities, transportation and other costs have made it impossible for pharmaceutical companies to manufacture many essential medicines,” said Chairman PPMA.
He said unless the prices of medicines are increased 40 per cent by the government or prices of medicines are deregulated, the unavailability of medicines would continue and feared that more companies could stop manufacturing several more medicines in the days to come.
Meanwhile officials in DRAP said that only eight medicines were short in the market due to supply chain issues, including problems in the release of the quota of controlled medicines, adding that their committee on shortage of medicines was trying its best to make these medicines available across Pakistan.