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No control over drug price

PINAKI ROY
Planned government changes in drugs policy do not include the imposition of price controls, according to Dr Abdul Gani, Director of Drug Administration.
He told The Daily Star that the department did not have the manpower or expertise to fix prices of the 700 drugs that are not on the essential drugs list.
"The pharmaceutical companies give us an invoice showing the product costing. We just
permit them to produce and sell those drugs. There's nothing we can do if they provide us with fictitious figures," he said.
Companies charge what they think the market will bear. Prices come down only when a manufacturer faces competition.
For instance, Square Pharmaceutical recently reduced the price of one of its drugs from Tk 85 to Tk 50 -- because another
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company, Acme, had started marketing a similar product for Tk 40.
Many critics believe that the companies are setting prices too high. All over the world manufacturers argue that high prices are needed to generate revenue to finance research for new drugs. But Dr Saidur Rahman, a professor of pharmacology at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibar Rahman Medical University, said that "Bangladeshi companies do not spend money on research. They import the raw materials and make the drugs based on formulas copied from foreign companies. So why should our poor patients pay a higher price?"
Dr Zafarullah Chowdhury of Gonoshasthya Kendra pointed out that almost all new drugs on the market were "new" only in name, not in content. They were old drugs in new packages "So what is the justification of more expensive drugs?"
Critics also say the prices of locally-made medicines have not fallen even though the prices of many raw materials -- mostly from India and China -- have dropped.
The President of the Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceuticals Industries, S M Shafiuzzaman,
claimed that differences in price between drugs sold in Bangladesh and those sold in India were not great, even though prices in India were government-controlled.But Diclofenac produced in India costs Tk 20 for 100 tablets compared with Tk 60 for locally produced tablets.
An Indian-made injectable Diclofenac costs Tk 2: the made-inBangladesh version costs Tk 5.
An Indian-made Phonoperviton injection costs Tk 12, the local one Tk 50. Indian Omiflazol tablets cost Tk 0.75 per piece: the price of a local Omiflazol is Tk 3.75.
A pharmacy department teacher at Dhaka University noted that Zantac cost 33 US cents in Bangladesh, and only 3 US cents in India and Nepal.
The prices of products made by different manufacturers in Bangladesh also vary. The wholesale price of 100 Renitidin tablets is Tk 180 from Beximco, Square and Opsonin Pharmaceuticals. Zisca and Al-Amin sell the same products to the wholesaler for Tk 60-Tk 65.
A degree of relief for patients will come if, as Dr Gani says will happen, the proposed changes in drug policy extend the number of "essential drugs" -- whose prices are controlled -- from the present 117 to 191.