Drug Admin must step up efforts to ensure quality and affordability of drugs
Md Ashraf Hossain :
Bangladesh’s drug policy in the early eighties boosted up the local pharmaceutical industry very fast.
The policy barred production of vitamins to foreign owned companies. Price approval from government drug administration was made mandatory for essential drugs.
Production, marketing and storing of the chemicals which were sold as medicine but were not necessary for treatment of any diseases were banned.
Marketing of drugs in generic names was made mandatory and marketing in trade names was barred.
In Bangladesh at that time the drug market was mostly captured by multinational pharmaceutical companies.
To create pressure on government multinational companies withdrew their factories or reduced production of drugs.
They thought that reduction of drug production in the country would force the government to scrape the ordinance for the drug policy.
In practice the local drug producers got an opportunity of an uncompetitive market, which they could not penetrate early owing to aggressive marketing strategies of multinational companies.
Within a couple of years more than a dozen local pharmaceutical companies earned healthy financial status selling their full product and improved quality at international level.
They expanded production capacity manifold within a very short span of time.
The local drug producer companies now produce Taka 6, 000 crore medicine in a year and cater more than nine-tenth requirements of Bangladesh.
In recent years, they are also exporting drugs to more than 160 countries globally.
The big pharmaceutical companies influenced the government in 1994 and got the drug policy of eighties amended.
After the amendment the drug producers can market drugs by trade name.
Marketing in generic names is no longer mandatory. Only 117 drugs need price approval from government drug administration. The AL government did not reintroduce the old drug policy.
The unethical, greedy commercial strategies of a few drug producers have facilitated the fixing of drug prices at exorbitant level.
The prices have become a burden to even the middle income group of people in the country as the majority people in Bangladesh are poor and ultra-poor.
Their financial capacities do not allow purchasing such high cost medicines.
People are suffering even though the local pharmaceutical industry developed very much.
As people are ignorant about generic and trade names of the drug they are purchasing medicine as suggested by doctors in trade name. Same medicines are sold at market at different price in trade names.
It is a common allegation that most of the big drug producers in Bangladesh are bribing doctors to prescribe their drugs in brand name.
More than hundred of small pharmaceutical producers are very much cornered. They are cornered by unethical marketing strategies of big companies.
Marketing of drugs in generic names should be made mandatory again. It will provide an opportunity to hundreds of small drug producers to develop.
Unethical business of the few big companies will be reduced to a great extent. The Drug Administration of the government needs to control pricing of all pharmaceutical products for the local market.
The prevailing drug ordinance is to be amended to make the price approval from Drug Administration and marketing of drugs in generic names mandatory for all pharmaceutical products. Price control in the domestic market by the Drug Administration will make the drugs affordable to people.
To enforce price approval of medicines, the mandatory manpower structure of the Drug Administration is to be increased manifold. The capacity of testing laboratories is to be increased and modern laboratories at different pharmaceutical hubs are to be set up.
Students are losing interest in studying science subjects nowadays as there is very limited opportunity to get good jobs.
Expansion of the potential pharmaceutical industry will encourage higher education in science; increase employment and enhance scarce foreign currency earnings.
Bangladesh needs a well organized large drug administration with adequate laboratories with modern equipment. It will require a big investment from the government but the return will also be huge in the years to come.
(The writer is a contributor to
The New Nation.)
