KARACHI:Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) has appreciated Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) for stopping Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) from registering drugs without fixed price. The step has been taken in the light of AGP’s Special audit report of DRAP, which showed so many irregularities in the price fixing mechanism by DRAP.

The report revealed that DRAP registered medicines without fixation of their prices due to which the drugs were sold at very high rates under Health and Over the Counter (HOTC) products. Despite the fact that a number of products fall in the category of drugs they were sold as vitamins and nutrition due to which their prices were not fixed.

After the AGP’s report it was proved that DRAP has manipulated in giving undue incentive to the HOTC manufacturers which led to more investment in non-essential medicine and thus production of essential medicine was discouraged. This is the reason that essential drugs are getting short in the market and people get their needed medicine after visiting four to five medical stores.

PMA suggested the government to make strict policy for continuous monitoring of DRAP because pricing of medicine is a serious issue. Government should make sure easily availability of drugs at affordable prices, it said.