Sri Lanka Pharma Chamber urges transparent drug pricing mechanism
View(s):The Sri Lanka Chamber of Pharmaceutical Industry (SLCPI) is urging the Ministry of Health to establish a fair and transparent pricing mechanism which factors the impact of US dollar appreciation against the rupee, similar to the pricing formula applied on petroleum products and domestic LPG.
A fully resourced quality assurance laboratory, a primary pre-requisite in other countries, that could test the quality of all pharmaceuticals imported into the country and can do post marketing surveillance is the need of the hour, the chamber said in a media statement.
The SLCPI cautioned that in the absence of such stringent quality assurance, imposing price ceilings for pharmaceuticals arbitrarily would pave the way for poor quality products to be sold, while the more efficacious medicines that are deemed vital will soon not be economically viable to import, it said.
“While SLPCI lauds the intent of making medicines affordable to the general public of Sri Lanka, concern on the methodology adopted in selecting these molecules and ensuring quality and efficacious medicines as opposed to cheap medicines was cautioned, with SLCPI urging the Minister and NMRA at a meeting held last week, not to compromise quality over affordability,” the release said.
The urgent need of a pricing mechanism to address the impact of continuous rupee depreciation was highlighted by SLCPI, stating that price controls in the absence of a proper mechanism is unfair and not sustainable, reminding that Section 118 (4) of the NMRA Act clearly states that, “the Minister shall, in consultation with the Pricing Committee, the Consumer Affairs Authority and all stakeholders and taking into consideration all other relevant factors, prescribe a pricing mechanism.”
The industry said that the write down of losses on inventory at hand cannot be absorbed again having borne a colossal loss of around Rs. 1.5 billion in the first round of price controls. These losses were entirely borne by the manufacturers and importers, who reimbursed all distributors and retailers, which will not be the case in future, leading to much difficulties for the smaller players.