Govt plans to expand list of essential medicines

The government has plans to add more medicines to the existing list of essentials drugs to make available new generation medicines to the common people at affordable prices.

Health secretary MM Neazuddin said, when contacted by the FE, said "We'll have a meeting soon on the inclusion of more drugs in the essential list and I hope the job will be done within a short period."

The government has been fixing the prices of essential drugs since the promulgation of the Essential Drugs Ordinance in 1982. The number of such drugs is now 117.  

He said once the new generics are included in the list of medicines the prices of which are controlled by the government the common man would start getting benefits.  

Currently, the manufacturers fix prices of the medicines beyond the essential drugs list and they have a propensity not to produce price-controlled drugs.

According to different market sources at present only 30 per cent of the essential medicines are available due to manufacturers' reluctance to produce them.

Bangladesh chemist and druggist association vice president Abdul Hai said, "The market players manufacture alternatives to medicines on the list of essential drugs. As a result they can fix prices of the same."

He said the manufacturers also market the new drugs with the help of physicians. The drug manufacturers spend a huge some on their promotional activities, he added.  

Mr. Neazuddin admitted that the government was concerned about the hike in the prices of medicines in recent months.

He said, "We have identified that the pharmaceutical companies somehow motivate the physicians to prescribe medicines that are usually not on the list of essential drugs. This enables them to fix prices of new generic medicines."

He said, "If we solve this problem by including more generics in the list of essential drugs, automatically people will get medicines as reasonable prices."

According to sources in the association of druggists and chemists, the market prices of medicines on the essential drugs list and outside it have increased by 70 to 200 per cent respectively over the last few months.

They said the top fifteen leading companies have more than fifty per cent share in the existing medicine market and these companies are spending a lot on the promotion of their products.