Establishing full government control on lifesaving drugs' prices and low-duty import of necessary raw materials are among a package recommendation made in a probe report on the overheated medicine market in Bangladesh.
Sources have said a government intelligence agency has placed the 17-point recommendations following industrywide survey ordered by the high-ups in order to control spiralling prices of medicines, including prioritising import of its raw materials, which dug-makers say faces hurdles from LC opening with banks.
Same problem with LC opening is raised by importers of other supplies as banks say they are hard up for dollar dearth. Businesses attribute unusual price hike of consumer goods to high import costs.
In its report, said the sources, the Special Branch has recommended pared-down duties on the import of medicines, besides ensuring uninterrupted supply of essential drugs, intensifying vigilance by the Directorate General of Drug Administration, stopping unilateral increase in prices by pharmaceutical companies.
It has also suggested empowering the government's drug administration to fix logical prices of nearly 1500 generics. Currently, the government fixes prices of 117 generic medicines.
In India, government controls prices of around 800 generics categorized as essential medicines.
The agency report has been placed with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) recently for taking action so that prices of medicines could be brought within the affordability of common people.
The Drug Price Fixation Committee, comprising stakeholders, held a meeting last week following instructions from the PMO to discuss the recommendations.
General Secretary of the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) Md Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan, who attended the meeting, however, heaved a sigh of despair over the outcome for now. There is no good news coming from the meeting for the consumers on cooling the overheated market of medicines, he said.
"From CAB, we have requested giving some relief to the consumers in any way but the pharmaceutical companies have declined the call," he told the FE.
Pharmaceutical industry insiders say they are facing difficulties in opening letter of credit (LC) in the banks and financial institutions to import raw materials for medicine.
"The Bangladesh Bank (BB) should give instructions to the banks and financial institutions to prioritise pharmaceutical industry on opening LC for pharmaceutical raw materials," said Muhammad Halimuzzaman, treasure of Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceuticals Industries (BAPI).
He said delay in LC opening in some banks is causing slow pace in production of few medicines.
On price hike of medicines, he said the prices of some medicines had been adjusted after a long time since 1994 instead of government decision to revise it annually.
"As prices have been increased after a long period, the surge seems noticeable to common people," he added.
He also said the cost of production of medicines jumped significantly and there was no alternative to increasing the prices of medicine.
The state-owned Essential Drugs Company Limited (EDCL) only produces 25 medicines out of the 117 as it cannot afford high cost of production as private companies can.
The fact-finding report says the pharmaceutical companies should avoid unhealthy competition among them and aggressive marketing strategies to cut distribution and advertisement expenditures, which are ultimately passed on to the ailing people.
It also suggests cutting expenditures on making attractive packaging as another way of reducing production cost of medicine.
The investigator said monitoring could be launched to find out whether doctors are taking any undue benefits prescribing medicine of specific companies.
The agency said initiatives could be taken to produce quality raw materials of pharmaceuticals in local industries, strengthening capacity of EDCL, coordination between health ministry and drug administration, stern action on charging more than government-fixed prices.
No pharmaceutical companies or pharmacies should charge excess prices than that of the government- fixed prices, it said.
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