According to the Department of Drug Administration (DDA), the pharmaceutical companies have said that they cannot produce medicines at the existing price due to immense hike in cost of the chemicals used for manufacturing drugs. [break]
“We have proposed to revise the price of 22 essential drugs. We will start with paracetamol, albendazole, antibiotics and cough syrups,” President of Association of Pharmaceutical Producers of Nepal (APPON) Umesh Lal Shrestha said. “We are working to bring uniformity in the prices of essential drugs,” Shrestha added.
Shrestha claimed the price of paracetamol has not been revised for 15 years even though the price of chemicals has increased five-fold since. APPON has proposed to the DDA to raise the price of every tablet of the common drug paracetamol, widely used as pain killer, from the existing 60 paisa to Rs 1.
APPON has also asked the DDA to review the price of albendazole used to treat parasitic worms. Shrestha said that a tablet of albendazole currently costs anything from eight rupees to Rs 41 in the market. “To bring about uniformity in its price, we have proposed to raise the cost of per tablet of albendazole to Rs 10,” Shrestha revealed.
APPON has also called for a review in the prices of antibiotics and vitamin B complex. Member Secretary of the Drug Pricing Monitoring Committee (DPMC) of DDA Pan Bahadur Chhetri said the reasons given by pharmaceutical companies for raising the prices of drugs have convinced DDA. He said the committee is likely to give consent to the proposal next week.
“The transportation cost has doubled, while the increased power cuts, wage hike of workers, and increasing bank interest rate have also raised the cost of production,” Chhetri reasoned.
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