Manufacturers demand price review of govt controlled drugs

Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (Bapi) has demanded price review of government-controlled drugs, which has been stalled since 1994, says a press release.
The director of drug administration controls prices of 117 essential drugs. Although according to the pricing policy, the government is supposed to review prices of controlled drugs every year based on inflation and change in exchange rate, the government has not reviewed the prices of this category since 1994.
The manufacturers of controlled category are incurring huge loss due to increase in prices of active pharmaceutical ingredients in international market, according to a Bapi statement.
Prices of pharmaceuticals are hardly controlled anywhere in the world except Bangladesh and India. In Bangladesh, such control and irrational pricing of drugs have discouraged the local manufacturers to produce some essential drugs where their selling price does not cover even cost of production.
This has encouraged illegal entry of imported products and the patients are paying 15-20 times more.
For example, the approved price of Phenobarbitone is Tk 0.30 per tablet as compared to Tk 1.92 in India, and Bangladeshi patients are buying Indian substitutes of the same at Tk 5 coming through illegal means, the statement added.
It is clearly evident that such irrational control of prices has resulted in losses not only to the manufacturers but also to Bangladesh government and more importantly to the poor patients of the country.