Pharmaceutical industry is almost entirely dependent on imported raw material for manufacturing different brands of medicines as no policy decision was ever taken and implemented for setting up raw material units in line with the provisions of national health policy. Pakistan Pharmaceutical Association, while debunking the smear campaign of PML-N about the import of finished products from India, did make a demand in a press conference at Karachi Press Club for lifting ban on the import of raw material for manufacturing medicines. Raw material import was also hit when Pakistan severed trade relations with India.
After the imposition of exports restriction on raw material export by Indian government in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, medicines’ manufacturers in Pakistan faced difficulty to acquire the required raw material from a third country that imports the Indian raw material. Who is responsible for developing an economic culture of entire dependence for the import of raw material for the pharmaceutical industry? Why the ministries of Industries, Production, Commerce, Finance, Science and technology and Drugs Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) did not facilitate setting up raw material producing industry? DRAP is playing a discouraging role, if not destructive, in the growth of pharmaceutical industry. For example, it is creating obstacles in making patent and subsequent commercial production of high quality sanitizer, which is developed by Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, an attach R& D organisation of Ministry of Science and Technology.
